


Abort, Retry, Fail

by amcw177



Series: *Heroes Not Included [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Case Fic, Con Artists, Gokudera Hayato/Yamamoto Takeshi - implied, Hibari Kyouya has parents, M/M, Robbery, Theft, mild violence, white collar au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-23
Updated: 2010-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 12:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2348864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amcw177/pseuds/amcw177
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A seemingly clear-cut case turns into Gokudera's worst nightmare when he receives mysterious threats, ends up on the wrong side of a sword, involuntarily dabbles in genealogy, and finds out that he may be a liar but not a cheat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Setup

**Author's Note:**

> This is a **repost from Livejournal**. I'm working on moving all my old stuff from LJ into this account. I've backdated it, but I'm not sure that works with multichapter fics. In case this does show up as new in the tag: I am really sorry!
> 
> \---
> 
> Inspired by the show 'White Collar'. Part 2 of the *Heroes Not Included series.
> 
> Can be read as stand-alone but some jokes may seem a bit BWZUH? without part 1. But if you're willing to accept some things as given you should be fine.
> 
>  **Beta:** Grammar and punctuation wizard, lab rat: [kentucka](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kentucka). General character accuracy, story flow, spotting of plot holes: [doomcake](http://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcake), dicks (LJ), [lindenmae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lindenmae). Remaining mistakes are mine alone.

It was all Peter's fault. Peter McSomethingorother because Gokudera didn't give a flying fuck what the guy's name was.  
  
He was nursing his second coffee while pretending not to notice how the hands on the clock over the door were ticking towards 7am. He tried not to count FBI agents bustling in and out of the office out of fear of falling asleep. Sheep in black suits.  
  
And there came the sheepherder. Or the wolf - it was sometimes hard to distinguish.  
  
"Stop looking like that and make yourself useful." Hibari snatched the paper cup from Gokudera's hands with ostentation.  
  
"Hey!" Gokudera fumbled for the cup but Hibari put it way out of reach, "I was drinking that, asshole!"  
  
"Drink it later," the agent said dryly.  
  
"It's already godawful as it is," Gokudera scoffed, "it's gonna be nothing but devil's piss when it's cold."  
  
Hibari looked at him as if there had never been a problem that had less been his.  
  
Gokudera rolled his eyes and sighed. "Alright. I'm too fucking tired to argue with you. What exactly am I supposed to make myself useful at?"  
  
Naturally, Hibari ignored his sidenote on sleep deprivation. It was easy enough for him. The man was irritatingly awake almost 24/7. It hardly mattered how much he slept or where or when. But when he did, Gokudera had found out, Hibari was like a stone with a heartbeat - a stone with surprisingly swift reflexes, which was another thing Gokudera had learned the hard way.  
  
"At 3am this morning the log files show that the source code was copied onto a portable device," Hibari explained. "You're here because I'm here. Now you might as well find out why somebody would steal the source code of a video game."  
  
"Since when does the FBI investigate theft of virtual property?" Gokudera stifled a yawn and promptly received a reprimanding glance from Hibari. He didn't care overly much. All he cared about was that he was not currently in bed sleeping.  
  
"Since the owner of this company is a close friend of the mayor's son." There was a faint suggestion of disgust in Hibari's tone and it made Gokudera smile a little. He was getting better at spotting that. Incidentally, he was also getting better at determining what Hibari liked and what he didn't. Gokudera had a mental list. Admittedly, the 'Does not like' side was significantly overweight but at least everything in there was a sure bet. He still wasn't quite sure where to put his own name though.  
  
He'd tentatively filed it under 'Like (on good days)'.  
  
"And don't you have special guys for that?" Gokudera patted his pockets in search for his cigarettes. If he couldn't have a decent coffee he wanted to at least have a smoke while thinking. "Why are  _we_ here?"  
  
"They asked for the best."  
  
Gokudera put the cigarette between his lips but didn't light it. Instead he turned to look at Hibari. "Does the word 'hubris' mean anything to you?"  
  
"Not if it doesn't have anything to do with this case." Hibari still wasn't showing even the slightest trace of amusement. "And don't smoke in here."  
  
Normally, Gokudera should have known better than to disregard Hibari's warning but it was freaking 7am in the morning, he hadn't nearly had enough coffee, less than three hours of sleep and he was cranky enough to risk a fullblown fight. He resolutely lit his cigarette and took a long, satisfying drag from it.  
  
"Arrest me then." Gokudera smirked and blew a cloud of smoke into Hibari's face. Hibari waved it away - with a tonfa.  
  


\---

  
  
"'t wa'n't a business rival." Gokudera noted and prodded the thick balls of cotton currently stuffed up his bleeding nose. At least he had another cup of coffee now.  
  
"Come again?" The executive manager of Lynx Entertainment Ltd., one Peter McFarlane, blinked at Gokudera.  
  
"He said it wasn't a business rival of yours," Hibari repeated whilst flipping through some files on the manager's desk.  
  
"What makes you think that?" Peter inquired, trying to shuffle papers away from Hibari. He was fighting a losing battle.  
  
Gokudera hesitantly pulled out the cotton and grimaced before tossing it in the trash can. "Come on, a rival company would have just hacked your servers."  
  
"Excuse me? How can you-"  
  
Gokudera cut Peter off before he could start elaborating on their oh-so-supreme firewall. "First of all, if you're just looking for the source code why smash up half the office? And secondly, any decent hacker would have known that you've got a log running in the background."  
  
Peter obviously sought for something to say, judging by the upset look on his face but he eventually settled for: "In case, emphasis on  _in case_ , you're right, what does that leave us with?"  
  
Gokudera shrugged. "With somebody trying to conceal that they were looking for more than just your source code. And doing a shitty job of it."  
  
"We will be needing to take a look at your programming," Hibari announced.  
  
"I'm afraid that's not possible," Peter said determinedly, attempting to stare Hibari down. Gokudera would have liked to tell him that it was useless but he figured Peter had better learn from his own mistakes.  
  
Hibari straightened up to his full height. For someone with Japanese origins it was quite impressive. Peter seemed to think so too.  
  
"We have to know what the thieves were so interested in." Hibari took a step towards the manager, who tried to inconspicuously bring the entire length of the desk between them. "If we are lacking important information we won't be able to uncover who took your source code."  
  
"You can't threaten me like that!" Peter almost squeaked, sending a pleading glance in Gokudera's direction. But Gokudera had been in the same situation often enough to know that there were only two ways out of it - one was agreeing to everything Hibari demanded. The other was death. Gokudera had found a third one but he still wasn't quite sure how he was doing it.   
  
"I am merely illuminating the consequences of your wanting cooperation." Hibari had a special technique for people he - technically - was not allowed to hit. He put one hand on the desk and leaned forward a little so that they were on eye-level. The other hand he usually left hanging loosely by his side, with only the glimpse of polished metal flashing from underneath his cuffs.  
  
It was like sitting in a cave during an earthquake while staring at the stalactites hanging overhead which could easily split you in half should they come crashing down. Surrender was the thin yellow-ish safety line dangling from the opening impossibly far up.  
  
Peter's eyes darted from Hibari to Gokudera and back, as if begging Gokudera to call back his hellhound. Little did the man know that Hibari very rarely responded to commands and if he did it was most likely to shove them back into your mouth with the help of steel.  
  
"Look," Gokudera stepped forward in a delusional attempt at saving the situation, "we don't want to steal your code. That's already been done anyway-"  
  
"How dare you-"  
  
"Shut it, man, I'm trying to throw you a lifeline here. Let me look through your code. For God's sake, have one of your guys keep an eye on me, if that makes you feel better." Gokudera pointed at a few desks that seemed to have survived the thieves' smash attack. "We can do it here too, if you like."  
  
Peter stared at him for a long moment, probably weighing his options. Then he took one last look at Hibari and gave in.  
  
"Okay," he sighed, "I'll have Ted give you a hand."  
  


\---

  
  
There was  _always_  a guy called 'Ted'. Gokudera suspected that it was somehow intrinsic to the survival of these companies - even if it was just the janitor.  
  
Said 'Ted' was currently logging onto his computer with Gokudera sitting next to him and Hibari hovering behind them like a hawk waiting for movement.  
  
"How come I suddenly volunteered for this?" Gokudera leaned back, throwing Hibari a pissed glance over his shoulder.  
  
"Because you are finally becoming a decent and upstanding citizen." Hibari said but the little smirk didn't escape Gokudera's attention.  
  
"Like you?" Gokudera replied mockingly.  
  
"Don't overestimate yourself." The tip of Hibari's shoe tapped against the anklet that was beeping proof of Gokudera's shaky relationship with 'decent and upstanding'. "You've got a long way to go."  
  
"Good," Gokudera grinned, "I couldn't live with myself if I was such a douchebag."  
  


\---

  
  
"Is he even allowed to do that?" Ted gaped at Gokudera, who was pressing a plastic bag full of ice cubes against the back of his head.  
  
"No," Gokudera grumbled and carefully rubbed the cold bag against the swelling bump, "but try telling him that."  
  
Ted glanced over at the agent who was busy ordering his minions around. "I see your point."  
  
Gokudera refrained from informing Ted about the fact that Hibari used to hit a lot harder before they started having sex. But he figured that this was a conversation he didn't want to have - least of all with someone called 'Ted'.  
  
"Okay, can we move on?" Gokudera gestured at the screen, "I've got places to be, people to see, you know."  
  
"Really?" Ted opened a few files but gave him a look that wanted to say  _'You're a convict. Where the hell would you need to go?'_.  
  
"Yes. Really." Gokudera hissed, squeezing the ice bag until cold water was trickling down his sleeve. "Shit."  
  
He dumped the leaking bag in Ted's trash can. "Are we done talking about me? Can we work on the code now?"  
  
"Sure." Ted gave a shrug and started clicking through innumerable lines of programming. Gokudera's morning was just getting better and better.  
  


\---

  
  
"Wait!" Gokudera gestured wildly. "Scroll back."  
  
Ted did as he was told.  
  
"There," Gokudera swatted Ted's hand away from the keyboard and peered at the screen, "I know that algorithm."  
  
"You do?" Ted's eyebrows disappeared underneath his long bangs.  
  
"Stop asking stupid questions." Gokudera stood up and scanned the room for Hibari. He found him standing by the door, quietly conversing with Kusakabe.  
  
"Hey, asshole," Gokudera yelled with a shiteating grin, "I think I've got something here."  
  
"Should you really be calling him 'asshole'?" Ted whispered as they waited for the agent to make his way back to them.  
  
"No," Gokudera flopped down on the swivel chair, "but he shouldn't be hitting me either. Tit for tat."  
  
"He could get you arr- Watch out!" Ted ducked in panic but Gokudera only smirked and whirled the chair around so that Hibari's tonfa-enforced swing ended up grazing the backrest instead. Nobody but Gokudera noticed the slight flinch when Hibari's knuckles painfully connected with the hard plastic.  
  
"He's already arrested me, dumbass." Gokudera's eyes didn't leave Hibari's despite actually talking to the rather terrified Ted. Hibari's glare either said  _'I will kick your ass to the moon and back for that'_  or  _'Sex on my desk later'_. He couldn't be sure, sometimes they were one and the same.  
  
"You said you found something?" Hibari said but he was grinding his teeth. This round clearly went to Gokudera.  
  
"I have," Gokudera gloated - only in part about his discovery, "see these lines of code?"  
  
Hibari nodded.  
  
"I've seen that before." Gokudera settled back and revelled in his knowledge. "It was programmed by a guy called Gilbert-"  
  
"Hey, how do you know Gilly?" Ted's eyes went wide.  
  
Gokudera ignored him and the odd nickname. "I'm pretty sure if you went and checked the employee list of this company you would find that he used to work here."  
  
"True." Ted absolutely wanted to be a part of this investigation it seemed. "He quit about a year and a half ago. I remember him. Tall guy, a bit quirky. But clever."  
  
Gokudera and Hibari shared a meaningful glance of unanimous ignorance.  
  
"What does this have to do with this case?" Hibari inquired.  
  
Gokudera lightly tapped the screen and smirked. "Because that piece of code right there is also used in the coding of a specific keypad security system."  
  
Hibari gave him The Eyebrow. Gokudera had come to know it quite well. It was his way of saying that he was almost impressed.  
  
"And you know of this how?" Hibari asked with the equivalent of a baseball bat of suspicion in his voice.  
  
"Continuing education." Gokudera replied nonchalantly, "Just because I'm working cases for the FBI doesn't mean I don't keep up with new developments on the security sector."  
  
Hibari seemed to consider this for a moment and then nodded. "I'll tell Kusakabe to find this man. We'll need to talk to him."  
  
"Uh, I imagine that will be difficult," Gokudera demurred. "He's dead."  
  
Ted and Hibari both stared at him - with varying degrees of surprise.  
  
"What? I said I keep up with this kind of stuff," Gokudera huffed. "He died in a motorcycle accident about a month ago. Don't look at me like that! It's not like I go through the obituaries every morning or something. I only know because he was working for SecuNet who happen to produce top-notch security systems."  
  
"That might explain why they stole the whole code instead of just going to him directly," Hibari mused.  
  
"Who exactly are 'they'?" Ted butted in.  
  
"No idea yet." Gokudera sighed. He got up and pointed at the dark-haired agent. "But judging by the look on his face I guess we're gonna go and find out."


	2. Hash

Gokudera gladly accepted the cup of steaming hot coffee. It had a slight resemblance to motor oil but after going over thousands of lines of code Gokudera felt he needed another caffeine boost.  
  
He rummaged through his pockets for some spare change but instead came up with a non-descript brown envelope.  
  
"What the hell?" He turned the envelope around, looking up and down the street for anyone who could have tucked it into his pocket.  
  
"Hey, you planning on paying for that?" The man behind the counter of the hot-dog stand glared at Gokudera with all the commanding nature of someone covered in sweat, grease and the smell of sausages.  
  
"Fuck off," Gokudera snarled but handed him the money anyway. He didn't particularly feel like starting a fist-fight over a cup of grimy coffee.  
  
He didn't even hear the guy's certainly nasty retort. He took the cup and headed back to the office building where Hibari was waiting for him. He had graciously allowed Gokudera to quench his desire for coffee before driving back to headquarters.  
  
Gokudera carefully opened the envelope, even though it seemed unlikely that it would explode. Too thin and the lack of padding suggested that whatever was inside was non-sensitive to pressure. He let the contents slide into his open palm and discovered a single paper folded in half.  
  
"What the everloving-" He never finished that thought. When he unfolded the paper every single thought was wiped from his mind. Even the one for coffee.  
  
The cup clattered onto the pavement, spilling hot liquid all over his shoes. It barely registered. He stared at the black and white photograph that the envelope had held. He blinked but the image stayed the same.  
  
What he was looking at was unmistakeably, undoubtedly Bianchi, his step-sister. Which was impossible because nobody was supposed to know that he even  _had_  a step-sister.  
  
He turned the picture around and found a note on the back - printed, not hand-written.  
  


_Tomorrow. Noon. Coffee shop across FBI HQ._

  
  
Gokudera stared at the message. He didn't know what scared him more - that someone knew of his sister or that somebody was able to slip him an envelope without him noticing.  
  


\---

  
  
Bianchi was the silky-thin thread that still tied him to his family back in Italy. It was screwed-up because their only genetic connection was their father who Gokudera despised more than anything else. And that already included being the FBI's lapdog. At least that one had perks.  
  
She was the one who cared which was why Gokudera couldn't push her away entirely. They had kept loosely in touch over the years - a short text message  _'Hi. I'm in London. Don't call.'_ , a quick phone call here, maybe even a snapshot for Christmas there but barely more. They met once or twice a year, mostly because Bianchi had a nasty habit of finding him wherever he was hiding.  
  
Whenever they came into contact she would ask him about his life; was there anyone special, had he finally found someone,  _blahblahblah_. She had these ridiculous views on love and being bonded forever and all that bullshit. Gokudera never cared much for that - he'd given up on the idea when he'd discovered what had happened to his mother.  
  
Although, sometimes he wondered what he would say now. Hibari definitely fell into the 'special' category, Gokudera just wasn't sure they meant the same kind of special.  
  
Either way, Bianchi cared. She always had and despite her being not much of an angel herself she didn't deserve to be pulled into Gokudera's world. She had problems of her own and Gokudera hated to add his own to the pile. Besides, if he were really completely honest he would have had to admit that he actually liked her.  
  
Maybe that was why he decided to play this one close to the chest.  
  


\---

  
  
"You look like you've seen a ghost."  
  
Gokudera shrugged, seemingly hypnotised by the skyline that was flashing past the passenger window. "I miss my coffee machine."  
  
"You mean  _my_  coffee machine," Hibari pointed out. "I bought it."  
  
"Yeah, but you don't even drink coffee." Gokudera finally turned around but still couldn't bring himself to look at the agent. The envelope lay heavy in the inside pocket of his suit jacket, like a rock. He needed to call Shamal. He  _wanted_  to tell Hibari.  
  
But as far as Gokudera knew Hibari had no idea that he was still in contact with any part of his family. He liked to keep it that way - at least until he'd figured out what the hell was going on.  
  
"Still doesn't make it your coffee machine," the agent concluded, steering the Mercedes through midday traffic.  
  
"What-fucking-ever," Gokudera ground out but it lacked his usual fervour. There was no way Hibari didn't notice but Gokudera was too lost in his thoughts to care.  
  
Fortunately, Hibari was not one to pry. Most of the time he didn't give a damn. All of the other times he either already suspected what was going on or he found out behind your back. But he rarely asked. It was a blessing for both of them because Gokudera didn't feel like talking anyway.  
  
As a result they spent the rest of the drive in contemplative, vaguely uncomfortable silence.  
  


\---

  
  
Gokudera was pacing around in the parking lot, smoking his cigarette like asthma medicine and having a heated argument with Shamal.  
  
"Me? What did  _I_  do?" He gesticulated furiously, sending ashes flying all over the place. "I didn't do anything, for fuck's sake!"  
  
 _"Then how did you end up with a picture of your sister in your pocket?"_  
  
"That's what I want  _you_  to tell me, you stupid old man!" Gokudera was already highly agitated as it was and Shamal's refusal to believe that for once Gokudera hadn't manoeuvred himself into the pile of shit he was sitting in was not helping.  
  
 _"It's not a nude picture by any chance is it?"_  Shamal sounded way too hopeful for Gokudera's taste.  
  
"No, it's not, you perverted psychopath," Gokudera snarled, taking another look at the image in his hand. "Looks more like a surveillance photo. She definitely wasn't aware that she was being photographed."  
  
 _"Shame, that."_  
  
"I swear to God, Shamal, if you are having twisted thoughts about my sister I will stuff all those creepy insects you like to experiment on so much down your throat and watch you choke."  
  
 _"Alright, loosen up, Hayato. Geez. Your sister just happens to be a beautiful woman."_  
  
"No, she's not. Not to you, you hear me?" Gokudera meant every word. Shamal was okay as long as there were no women involved and Gokudera couldn't care less what he did when they were but Bianchi was a whole different matter. Not that he feared Bianchi would actually fall for the idiot doctor - she had standards after all - but he refused to imagine Shamal anywhere even near his sister.  
  
Shamal gave a long-drawn sigh.  _"Okay, okay. Good God, are you sure you're getting laid enough? You're prissier than usual."_  
  
Gokudera's eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets. "I'm looking at stealthy surveillance photos of my goddamned sister with a threat attached to the back! I think I have all the right in the goddamned fucking world to be prissy."  
  
"And my love life is none of your business," he added as an after-thought.  
  
 _"Whatever you say. Well, I guess it can't be helped, can it? Send it over. The usual way. I'll see what I can find out."_  
  
Gokudera was a little calmer now that he had Shamal's word. "You'll have it by tonight."  
  
 _"What does your FBI buddy think of all of this?"_  
  
Gokudera stomped out the smouldering remains of the cigarette, seeing as how it had burnt down all the way on its own. He pretended Shamal had asked about the weather and not something that was wriggling its way through Gokudera's guts like a freaking tapeworm. "He doesn't know."  
  
 _"You sure? I mean, we're talking about Hibari here..."_  
  
Gokudera knew; he knew all too well that Hibari was the least sensible person on this planet while being the most observant. He was a living, breathing seismometer for Gokudera's emotions. He just chose to record them silently instead of calling Gokudera on every single one of them. It was oddly pleasant, if still a bit terrifying. Gokudera hated to talk about what made him tick, mostly because he rarely knew what it was in the first place. But Hibari never expected him to.  
  
And yet every little tremor was recorded, filed and tagged for later use. Only, Gokudera was beginning to develop a seismometer of his own - it just wasn't as accurate yet.  
  
"No," he said eventually, "he knows something's up but I think he's letting me take care of it for now. I can't tell him before I know what this psycho with a camera wants."  
  
 _"So you're just gonna meet up with this guy? Just like that?"_  
  
"Do I have a choice?"  
  
Shamal was silent for a moment.  _"Not any that you would like, I guess."_  
  
"That's right," Gokudera sighed, checking his watch. "Look, I gotta run. Let me know when you've got something on the photograph, okay?"  
  
 _"Sure thing. Oh, and my regards to your better half."_  
  
"He's not my better half, you moron." Gokudera hissed, like a cat splashed with water.  
  
 _"Okay, your worse half then."_  
  
"He's not my half  _anything_ , you freak!" He yelled, almost yanking off the side mirror of the car he was leaning on.  
  
 _"You sleep with him, you have to ask his permission to go anywhere and you have a coffee machine at his place. He is your other half, believe me."_  
  
The mirror creaked dangerously under Gokudera's fingers. His voice was barely distinguishable from a growl: "It's  _his_ coffee machine."  
  
The only thing that saved Shamal from a fistful of Gokudera's personal opinion were several dozen kilometres worth of distance.  _"And he's letting you use it. Same thing."_  
  
"Just-," Gokudera took a deep breath, working some life back into his fingers, "just call me once you're done with the photograph. Keep the rest of your useless relationship advice to yourself."  
  
He cut Shamal off before he could come up with even more preposterous assumptions about Gokudera's state of play with Hibari. It would have been so much easier if Gokudera had actually had valid arguments. But that had never kept him from arguing.  
  


\---

  
  
Avoiding Hibari only became a problem when Gokudera really wanted to. All of a sudden, the man seemed to be literally _everywhere_. And he was doing it on purpose, Gokudera was sure of it.  
  
Gokudera was doing some research on companies currently employing Gilbert's keypad algorithm when Hibari suddenly materialised before his desk. Gokudera was used to it by now. Hibari only ever walked up to people when he wanted to scare them. It was a neat little trick - give your victim the impression that they still have enough time to run. And then show them how wrong they were.  
  
If he simply popped into existence seemingly out of nowhere he meant business; cutting off all possible escape routes in one fell swoop. Gokudera hated when he did that. Mainly because he hadn't found a way to counter this technique yet. But he was working on it.  
  
"You're done for today," Hibari stated, his coat folded neatly over his right arm. "I will escort you home."  
  
Gokudera took a look around the office, which was empty except for the two of them and Kusakabe. "There's nobody here but Kusakabe. You can drop the act."  
  
Hibari raised an eyebrow. "Act?"  
  
Gokudera tossed the pen onto the stack of specifications he'd been going through and frowned. "Do you really think there is one single agent in this department who doesn't know that we're screwing each other?"  
  
"Are they placing bets?" Hibari retorted.  
  
"Er...," Gokudera wasn't sure what Hibari was aiming at, "no?"  
  
"Then why do you care?" The agent pointed at the computer, "I am not seeing you log out."  
  
Gokudera wondered what Hibari would do if there actually  _were_  a pot on whether or not they were doing the horizontal tango. Come to think of it, he should have started one - would have made him rich. But he figured that this particular train had left.  
  
He shook his head in silent frustration and shut down his computer. Although he had really hoped that Hibari would leave him be until it was save to head home without having to deal with this 'I know something's wrong and I'm gonna sit here and stare at you as long as it takes until you spill it' glare. It was complicated enough not to cross paths at the office but there was no way out once they were alone.  
  
He would have to find some kind of distraction - from his own dreadful foreshadowing as well as from Hibari's silent version of the Spanish Inquisition.  
  


\---

  
  
Hibari was not really reading his newspaper. Gokudera could tell because he hadn't turned that page for over five minutes and he was a fairly fast reader. He could feel Hibari staring at him  _through the freaking paper_.  
  
The sad thing was that if he'd just asked, Gokudera would have told him everything. But Hibari was giving him  _options_. Gokudera hated options. He had a horrible track record with those. He tended to go for the wrong one.  
  
Gokudera ran a hand through his hair; he was sweating. If he couldn't make Hibari stop scrutinizing him through the sports section he was going to lose it and he couldn't afford that. He kept flashing back to Bianchi's photograph and all the possible outcomes if he told Hibari. None of them seemed favourable at this point.  
  
He finally gave up and snapped his laptop shut. He stalked over to Hibari and yanked the newspaper out of his hands. "Sex. Now."  
  
He didn't give Hibari time to reply. In fact, he didn't want Hibari to say anything at all for the rest of the night. Gokudera settled down on Hibari's lap and effectively trapped the agent with his thighs. He sealed their lips as firmly as he could, attempting to drown out all potential words of refusal on Hibari's part. But it wasn't even needed - there weren't any. Hibari allowed this little diversion, for now.  
  
There was a clear warning in the way Hibari kissed:  _Free pass. But don't believe it will last forever._  
  
Fine. He could work with that. Hopefully, it wouldn't take forever, just tomorrow.


	3. Reroute

Gokudera spent the greater part of the morning feeling like shit. Hibari obviously knew quite well that something was up but he chose to wait for what Gokudera would do. That wasn't typical behaviour but Gokudera could easily guess where this was going.  
  
In many ways Hibari was a lot easier to handle than any other partner Gokudera had ever had. He pretty much had one single rule:  _Don't fuck this up._  
  
The complicated part was to meet this expectation. Gokudera had a strong suspicion that he was in the process of breaking this very rule. What worried him was that he was actually feeling bad about it.  
  
So bad, in fact, that he was glad to hear from Shamal.  
  
"What do you mean 'nothing'?" Gokudera was pacing on the parking lot again, pretending to enjoy a quiet smoke. It was the only thing he enjoyed at the moment.  
  
 _"I mean exactly what I said, Hayato."_  Shamal gave a sigh that sounded exhausted even over the phone.  _"There's nothing on the photograph. Nothing that may tell us who sent it to you. Even the print on the back is generic."_  
  
"Come on, there's gotta be  _something_." Gokudera knew he was being unfair but he was clutching at straws. It was half past ten and he wasn't exactly looking forward to his lunch break. He would have felt infinitely better if he'd had something tangible about his blind date.  
  
 _"I can have a friend run a few more tests but that's gonna take some time."_  
  
Gokudera pinched the bridge of his nose. He quickly glanced at his watch and winced. "Time that I don't have. Fuck."  
  
 _"Maybe you should tell your FBI friend about this."_  Shamal's voice took on a more serious tone.  _"Somebody obviously went through a lot of trouble to pull this off. Whoever they are, they have bigger plans. Plans that might be a bit too big for you."_  
  
None of that was any news to Gokudera. "I can't tell him. I can't risk having the bloody FBI storm the whole place before I know if sis is alright."  
  
 _"Look, all I'm saying is that a little backup might not be the worst idea."_  
  
Gokudera couldn't deny that he would have indeed felt a lot more confident if he'd had someone watching his back. But as a lone wolf operation at least he could be sure that if this went south he would only have himself to blame.  
  
"I'll tell him as soon as I know more." Gokudera put out his cigarette and headed back towards the elevator. "It's just too early. I need to do this alone. And besides, whoever's behind this obviously wants something from me, so they're probably not gonna shoot me right away."  
  
 _"Let's hope you're right."_  
  
"Is that your version of pep talk, old man? Because if it is it's not very effective." Gokudera joked but neither of them was laughing.  
  
 _"I try not to encourage suicide missions, Hayato."_  
  
"Good fucking God, man, you talk like I'm planning to commit Harakiri." Gokudera huffed, calling the elevator by repeatedly punching the button with the side of his fist - as if that helped. "What's the worst that can happen?"  
  
 _"Do I really need to make you a list?"_  
  
"Fuck you. I can take care of myself," Gokudera snarled and stepped into the small cabin. "I'll call you when I get back."  
  
 _"You do that. Just be careful, okay?"_  
  
"Always am." He ended the call and slipped the cell phone into his pocket before Shamal could call him a liar.  
  


\---

  
  
Noon neared with heavy, possibly lethal footsteps. Gokudera managed to excuse himself from the office by mumbling something about meeting a contact concerning the stolen source code. He only told Kusakabe, hoping to avoid any questioning looks and inconvenient FBI tails.  
  
Yet he kept checking if he was being followed all the way to the coffee shop.  
  
The shop was crowded and filled with all kinds of customers - from business men with polished leather shoes to students with shabby backpacks. It was impossible to determine who Gokudera was supposed to be looking for.  
  
When nobody approached him he figured he might as well take advantage of being in a coffee shop. He rummaged in his pockets for some small change and tried to figure out which blend to order when the barista handed him a cup.  
  
"I didn't order that." Gokudera frowned.  
  
"It's already been paid for, Sir." The barista smiled at him and placed the cup on the counter right in front of Gokudera.  
  
"Well, I don't care," Gokudera hissed, "I don't want it. I want a-"  
  
He glanced at the wobbly writing on the cup. I took him a moment before he realised that it had nothing to do with coffee.  
  


_Go to the men's room. Take the cup._

  
  
Gokudera stared at the paperback mug for a long moment and tried to figure out why there was a smiley scribbled below the instructions.  
  
"Anything wrong, Sir?" The barista asked and Gokudera was sure he could answer that with a definite 'yes'. But that would hardly help.  
  
"No. No, everything's fine." Gokudera hoped his expression matched his words. "Where's the toilet?"  
  
The barista gestured towards the far end of the shop. Gokudera took his funny cup of coffee and headed off to the restrooms. He had no idea what to expect but at first he was thoroughly disappointed. When he entered the room he found it completely empty.  
  
He checked all the stalls for any more hidden messages but all he found were some offensive rhymes and a couple of declarations of everlasting love, decorated with happily grinning penises. Gokudera was beginning to get annoyed. If he'd known they were going to play hide and seek he would have preferred to do it after hours. Hibari was pretty tight on working hours.  
  
He stood in the middle of the room, literally kicking his heels, when something poked him in the back.  
  
"What the f-"  
  
"Please, don't turn around." A deep and not necessarily unpleasant voice commanded. The sensation between Gokudera's shoulder blades turned strangely  _pointy_.  
  
Despite the warning, Gokudera twisted his head to see, "Shit. Who are you-... Wait. Is that a  _sword_?"  
  
"Yes, it is," His attacker sounded awfully cheery, "and I would hate to use it. Now, if you would please take a drink from your coffee?"  
  
"The fuck I will." Gokudera protested, whirling around. He fully intended to throw the cup into the stranger's face but having the sharp edge of what looked like a katana scrape along his neck made him reconsider. His captor was fast. He also happened to be stunningly good-looking.  
  
"Please." The young man was smiling. That alone was not weird - but that it actually reached his eyes was. "It's just a safety precaution. I promise nothing will happen to you."  
  
Gokudera tentatively poked the sword, grimacing. "I'm not sure I believe you."  
  
For a short moment the pressure on Gokudera's neck increased. And then it was gone all together. In one impossibly swift move the stranger had the sword sheathed behind his back. Gokudera was starting to wonder if this guy was as fast as Hibari.  
  
"Fair enough." The man gave Gokudera another strangely amicable smile and pointed at the cup: "Please. We don't have much time."  
  
Gokudera glanced down at the cup in his hands. Then he looked up at the young man. He seemed to be of Japanese descent with jet-black hair that appeared to be stuck in a constant state of morning excitement. He was remarkably tall but he held himself like someone who was enjoying a sunny day at the park. Despite his exquisite suit and the impressive sword he gave off a surprisingly relaxed vibe. He was the epitome of 'likeable' - which was odd for someone who might as well have been sent to decapitate Gokudera.  
  
And the way he saw it he was about to place his life in the hands of that man. It might not have been the most stupid thing Gokudera had ever done but it definitely made it into the top ten.  
  
"I swear, if you try anything...  _kinky_...," Gokudera wasn't sure how to threaten a man with a sword, so he left that to the guy's imagination.  
  
The stranger laughed. "You're safe with me. Don't worry."  
  
Gokudera scowled but brought the cup to his lips. It was cold. He hadn't even noticed that. He took a sip, almost sputtering clear liquid all over the place. It wasn't coffee either.  
  
"Yuck," Gokudera grimaced, "what the fuck is that? Tastes like shi-"  
  
'Shit' was the word he'd been looking for. But he never found it on account of blacking out.  
  


\---

  
  
Gokudera woke up perched on a massive armchair in a dimly-lit room. He tried to move but quickly realised that he'd been tied down. Thick bands of tape crisscrossed all over his torso. Handcuffs held his wrists together.  
  
Admittedly, he was beginning to get sick of waking up in dark places, tied to things. It was getting old.  
  
"You're awake. Good."  
  
Gokudera peered into the shadows on the opposite side of the small coffee table. His eyes were starting to adjust to the poor lighting but all he could make out was a slightly darker shadow that might or might not have been a human being. The tone of voice suggested he was talking to a man. He had a heavy accent; vaguely Asian, if Gokudera were forced to guess.  
  
"Who the fuck are you?" Gokudera demanded immediately. He had never been known for his polite manners.  
  
"I say you are hardly in the position to ask rude questions." There was movement in the shadows. Something in the way the man spoke made Gokudera think of old generals - used to giving orders and having them obeyed without hesitation. Gokudera did not deal well with authority.  
  
"I'm gonna be rude until you tell me what position I'm in." Gokudera scowled and if he hadn't been restrained he would have crossed his arms in front of his chest in defiance.  
  
"You were brought here because I have a proposition for you." Footsteps indicated that the man was coming towards Gokudera. They were slow, deliberate and precise, as if his captor was taking extra care to make his heels click on the concrete floor.  
  
The stranger stepped into the pool of light that surrounded the table. He was wearing a traditional yukata but somehow he managed to wear it like a suit. It should have been impossible with something that was basically a glorified bathrobe in Gokudera's opinion but it looked strangely imposing.  
  
"You can tell me all about that after you've told me where my sister is," Gokudera snarled as the man carefully arranged himself on the couch on the other side of the table. There was something in his movements that screamed familiarity to Gokudera but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.   
  
"Your sister is fine." The man didn't smile. It was almost as if his face didn't even possess the necessary muscles. He appeared to be in his fifties and Gokudera had definitely been right with his guess about the man's origins.  
  
"Not an answer." Gokudera leaned back as best as he could to make it clear that any further negotiations were futile unless he got some proper information on Bianchi's whereabouts.  
  
The man arched an eyebrow and all the alarm bells in Gokudera's head went off. He just couldn't say why.  
  
"You demand a lot for someone tied to a chair," the man concluded coldly.  
  
"Untie me and see if I get better at listening." Gokudera raised his chin in an open challenge. He doubted that he would get very far if he tried to run. Besides, they both wanted something from the respective other - they were merely in the process of setting the terms. A little give and take was required.  
  
The man regarded him like some sort of precarious chemical experiment but then seemed to decide that Gokudera was unlikely to explode. He made a curt gesture towards someone behind Gokudera.  
  
Well, that was unsettling. Until now Gokudera hadn't even realised anybody else was in the room. He soon found out why when he twisted his head to see who his kidnapper's little helper was.  
  
The young guy from the coffee shop gave him a brilliant smile. It contradicted strongly with the sword he was pulling from its sheath on his back. He twirled it twice in one hand, the blade a silent silvery blur.  
  
Show-off. Gokudera rolled his eyes at the action. Hibari did that sometimes too. He mainly did it because it was a much cooler way to adjust his grip on the tonfa than fumbling with both hands. It was accidentally impressive.  
  
Gokudera was jerked out of his thoughts by a katana coming down mere inches from his face. He didn't even have time to flinch, which was probably a good thing. Otherwise he might have been missing an arm now.  
  
The blade sliced neatly through the tape binding him. It never even touched Gokudera's jacket.  
  
"There. I assume you are willing to cooperate now?" Gokudera's opposite waved the young swordsman away who vanished with a short nod and another one of those smiles that oozed inappropriate happiness all over the place. The creepy part was that he seemed to downright  _melt_  into the darkness; as if he'd never even been there.  
  
Gokudera stared at the spot where he he'd lost sight of the man, wiggling uncomfortably in his seat. No retreating footsteps - so either he was still in the room or he was wearing sound-absorbing slippers. Possibly with bunnies on them. Gokudera shuddered at either of these thoughts.  
  
He returned his gaze to the swordsman's boss and held up his handcuffed hands: "You forgot something."  
  
There was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it smile. "You have a reputation. Some safety measures are in order, I think."  
  
Gokudera decidedly did not grin proudly. His chest might have swelled a little though. "Yeah. I pick locks. Bad choice, if you ask me."  
  
"Can you also pick swords?" The man nodded towards the darkness. There was definitely a smile on his face now and Gokudera did not like its wicked undertones.  
  
He swallowed and refrained from casting a look over his shoulder. For all he could tell this sword-wielding dork was easily on par with Hibari. He had absolutely no desire to put that theory to a test.  
  
"Alright." Gokudera sat back, "I'm listening."  
  
"Good," the man ascertained. "As for your question: your sister is in Italy. She is unharmed but we are... watching her. Very closely."  
  
 _Yeah, through the scope of a fucking rifle, you bastards,_  Gokudera thought and it took all of his self-control not to flip this guy the bird and beat the everloving fuck out of him for threatening Bianchi.  
  
Gokudera's hands curled into fists in his lap. He was pretty sure his conversational partner noticed but it didn't seem to bother him.  
  
"I get it," Gokudera spat. "If I don't do what you want my sister is going to have 'an unfortunate accident', right?"  
  
The man didn't reply but his expression was answer enough. It was funny because until now Gokudera had been sure that there was only one person on this planet who was able to convey so much with so little facial muscle movement.  
  
"Okay," Gokudera sighed, "what do you want?"  
  
His opposite offered him a thin smile that was one part satisfaction and two parts superiority. Gokudera ignored it. He'd seen this kind of smile before and it never ceased to grate on his nerves.  
  
"Tea?"  
  
"What?" Gokudera stared at the stranger.  
  
"Business is best discussed over tea. Have some."  
  
 _Have some._  Not 'Would you like some?' or 'How about some tea?', no. That wasn't a question, this was a freaking order. The man clicked his fingers and a moment later the swordsman emerged with a tray.  
  
"I don't want your fucking tea," Gokudera snapped as the young man sat down two delicate cups and a teapot, "I want to know what's going on and be done with it."  
  
"Hold your tongue," the boss said calmly while pouring them some tea, "or Kaneda here will cut it off."  
  
Gokudera took a deep breath to unleash a tirade of assorted variations of the f-word onto his captor but he stopped instantly when he felt something cold and sharp against his throat. That was... unexpected. He hadn't even noticed 'Kaneda' drawing his sword.  
  
However, Gokudera figured he would witness it first hand when Kaneda used it. He would miss his tongue.  _Hibari_  would miss his tongue. So he kept his mouth shut and tried not to move too much.  
  
"I see we understand each other." The older man picked up his cup and took a tiny sip before waving the swordsman off into the shadows. With a small  _zing_  noise the steel warning was gone, as was its wielder. Seriously, this guy was beginning to give Gokudera the creeps. Nobody could exude this level of happiness while threatening to cut off somebody's head. Except, of course, if that person was a complete and utter madman.  
  
Gokudera considered this the most likely option. But at least he could stop calling the guy 'sword idiot' in his head now.  
  
"I want you to do what you do best, Gokudera-kun." The man put down his cup, nudging it around until the intricate design of a bird was facing Gokudera’s way, and gave him a knowing look. "I want you to steal something."  
  
Gokudera wasn't listening. He was staring at the cup. He knew one person, and one person  _only_  who was OCD enough to care which way the print on a freaking tea cup was pointing. What were the odds of two people having the exact same quirk? Well, it wasn't entirely impossible, Gokudera figured but there were other clues as well. The hair, the sharp eyes, the precise, effective movements, never more than needed but enough to get the point across.  
  
This couldn't possibly be a coincidence.  
  
"Oh fuck. You're  _his father_." Gokudera gaped at the man. It took him a moment to realise his mistake.  
  
Gokudera closed his eyes and silently counted to ten, hoping that when he was done he would still be alive. "I just said that out loud, didn't I?"  
  
"Indeed you did," Hibari's father noted calmly. "But don't worry. I know that you are...  _involved_  with my son. While I can't approve of his personal tastes he is still my son. He must not know about any of this. Are we clear?"  
  
Gokudera swallowed and nodded carefully. He wasn't sure how to tell Hibari about this incident anyway. Something told him that Hibari wouldn't appreciate a conversation starting with: 'Hey, I met your dad today. Nice chap. Bit on the creepy side but now we know where you got that from.'  
  
"At least that takes care of the rumours at work," Gokudera mumbled once he had processed the initial shock.  
  
Hibari senior arched an eyebrow and Gokudera sighed, gesturing vaguely. "They think he's the prototype of a military experiment in bionics."  
  
Hibari's dad seemed to consider this for a moment but then shook his head. "That's ridiculous."  
  
"That's exactly what he said." Gokudera frowned. "Literally,  _exactly what he said_."  
  
"Well, I think that's enough talk about my family," the elder Hibari commanded in a tone that suggested any more comments on this topic would be cut down in a very physical sense. "Back to my initial proposal. I need you to steal something for me."  
  
"You do realise that I'm wearing an electronic anklet and work for the FBI, right?"  
  
Hibari's father shot him a glance that clearly indicated that this was no news to him and would Gokudera please shut the hell up?  
  
"I did notice that, yes. You'll have to find a way around that."  
  
It was fortunate that Gokudera hadn't touched the tea yet because he would have sputtered it all over the table right about now. "How the hell do you expect me to pull off a heist with your son constantly looking over my shoulder? During my fucking toilet break?"  
  
His conversational partner gave him a look that brought to mind chop-chop motions, a big-ass sword and various non-essential yet beloved bodyparts. "Have you ever wished to be an only child?"  
  
Actually, on occasion he had but this appeared to be a rhetorical question. Gokudera threw his hands up in defeat. "Fine, I'll try my best."  
  
"I expect nothing less."  
  
Gokudera rolled his eyes. The Hibari family obviously shared a common misconception: that everything always went their way. It would have been so much more amusing if they weren't proven right most of the time.  
  
"Are you gonna tell me what I'm stealing or do I have to figure that out myself?" Gokudera grumbled.  
  
"Your target will be Neuberg BioChem. Kaneda will assist you. He will fill you in on the details."  
  
"Wait, wait, wait...," Gokudera frowned. That name definitely rang a bell. He'd seen it somewhere before. "Of course! That's one of the companies employing Gilbert's algorithm. Wait, that means-"  
  
Gokudera gaped at Hibari's father, who sat there like a monument - immovable and not at all impressed, "- the break-in at that video game company... that was  _you_?"  
  
Hibari senior refused to acknowledge this but he hummed quietly while sipping on his tea which was as much confirmation as Gokudera would ever get.  
  
Gokudera sat back. "You know, next time you should just get a hacker. Your guys did a piss-poor job there."  
  
Hibari's father nodded. "I can't argue that. That's why it was their last job."  
  
Somehow his tone of voice made the word 'last' sound like a heavy concrete block dropping into the ocean - possibly with some human feet in it.  
  
Gokudera tried to ignore the mental image. "Okay, so... what the hell could you want from a biochemistry firm?"  
  
"I don't recall this being any of your business."  
  
"I'm supposed to steal it, so I gotta know what it is, old m-," he stopped himself before he could insult the only other being on earth who could force people into committing suicide simply by glaring at them. He firmly pressed his lips together to keep his loose tongue from worsening his situation.  
  
Hibari the elder seemed to appreciate the gesture. He smiled almost amicably, which was probably the scariest facial expression he had yet to exhibit. "It will be revealed to you when I see fit. For now, all you need to know is that it is hardly larger than this teapot."  
  
Gokudera eyed the teapot. His mind was already racing, going through all the objects that might be worth stealing at such a company. He highly doubted they were after genetically enhanced tea leaves though.  
  
"Kaneda will provide you with anything you need. That will be all." With a wave of his hand Hibari's father summoned the swordsman out of nowhere. "Have some tea before you go. It's a special blend."  
  
Gokudera grimaced. The last time he'd had a 'special blend' he'd ended up tied to a chair. He watched the older Hibari gracefully stand up. The man gestured towards Gokudera's cup. "It was not an offer, Gokudera-kun. Drink it."  
  
"I was afraid you might say that," Gokudera mumbled but picked up the cup anyway. Between a headache and death by sword he chose the former.  
  
"One last question before you leave," Hibari's father suddenly turned around, already half-vanished into the dark, "does he... does he sometimes speak of me?"  
  
Gokudera was startled by the hesitation in the old man's voice. That was a 180° turn in attitude. The sad thing was that Gokudera knew from personal experience that father-son relationships didn't always work both ways. "No, not really. The last time a conversation veered off in that direction I spent the night at the hospital with a concussion."  
  
For some reason, that produced a small, oddly proud smile on the elder Hibari's face. He didn't say anything else, just gave a curt nod and disappeared. It made Gokudera wonder if all Hibaris were like this. They probably even had their dogs trained in various martial arts. Ninja-dogs; it seemed horribly plausible.  
  
"Gokudera?" Kaneda asked tentatively when Gokudera didn't move. "The tea. Please."  
  
He smiled broadly, beckoning for Gokudera to drink.  
  
"Do I have to? Can't you just fucking blindfold me or something?"  
  
Kaneda gave a tingling laugh, bright and open and not at all like someone whose main occupation was lurking in the shadows and slicing off important limbs. "I'm sorry. Boss's orders. But don't worry, I'll get you back safe and sound."  
  
He grinned so widely Gokudera almost feared his head would split in two. Strangely enough, Gokudera believed him. He also made a mental note to get an MRI exam because that was not a natural reaction towards someone holding a sword.  
  
"Shit." Gokudera sighed and took a gulp from the now lukewarm tea. "God, this stuff doesn't get any better if you put it in tea. Do me a favour, next time your boss wants to hold a meeting? Just hit me around the h-"  
  
The effect would have been the same - blacking out was blacking out.


	4. Status

"Urgh," was Gokudera's first comment upon waking up. It was rather dark but after careful inspection of his surroundings he realised that he'd merely buried his head in his arms. When he slowly scrambled up he noticed that he was back at the coffee shop and had apparently been snoring away on one of the tables.  
  
A sunny smile greeted him from the other side of said table. "Hey. You okay?"  
  
Gokudera rubbed his eyes, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyelids in a fruitless attempt to provide a counterache to the one spreading through his skull. "I've been drugged twice today, been kidnapped, threatened and blackmailed into agreeing to commit a federal crime. How the fuck do you think I feel, stupid?"  
  
There was the laugh again, ringing in Gokudera's ears like bloody Christmas jingles. He wanted to punch something. He was surprised to find that it wasn't Kaneda.  
  
The swordsman pushed a paper cup over the table. "Here. This'll help."  
  
Gokudera stared at the cup with blatant distrust.  
  
"Don't worry," Kaneda chuckled, "it's  _real_  coffee this time."  
  
Gokudera took an experimental sip and - who would have guessed - it was indeed actual coffee. He put the cup down and glanced around at the buzz of activity in the shop. "How the fuck did you drag me in here without anyone noticing?"  
  
Kaneda tapped his nose and winked. "I'm a ninja."  
  
Gokudera offered nothing but a disdainful grimace in return. "Idiot."  
  
"So," Kaneda sat up straight, thrumming his fingers on a papercup of his own, "I was thinking we should meet up later on. Seems like we've got a lot to discuss, right?"  
  
"Glad at least one of us is looking forward to it."  
  
Kaneda gave him a vaguely hurt look. "Hey, it wasn't my idea. Boss's orders."  
  
"I didn't say 'no', did I, moron?" Gokudera ground out. "You don't have to convince me. Just tell me where and when and don't fucking be late."  
  
At this point Gokudera realised something about the swordsman he hadn't thought possible given the man's profession - Kaneda was basically an overgrown, insanely enthusiastic puppy. Gokudera suspected he'd received a blow to the head early in his childhood. It took relatively little to make him happy.  
  
"Well, you've got a place of your own, right?" Kaneda grinned merrily. "We could meet there. That way it won't look suspicious."  
  
Gokudera did indeed have a room at a shabby hotel. He'd kept it because... well, as a matter of fact, the only reason he was still renting it was because the FBI was paying for it. Gift horses came in all shapes and sizes. But the thing was that he wasn't really  _staying there_  anymore. He'd been ignoring it until recently but the accumulation of suits in his size and coffee utensils at Hibari's place could be considered an indicator for him - for lack of a better word -  _living_  in the agent's house. Or, as Hibari liked to put it:  _being a parasite_.  
  
It wasn't even his fault. They worked on cases together and Hibari constantly brought work home. Was it his fault that he happened to be part of this work? He could hardly refuse to tag along. For one, Hibari's place was infinitely more hygienic than his crappy room and second, the term 'all-nighter' didn't always apply to work-related issues. He would have been a fool to decline sex with Hibari. And since Gokudera was certainly no fool... All in all, it was merely a result of extraneous causes which he had no influence over whatsoever that his stuff kept piling up in Hibari's closets.  
  
But no matter how he looked at it, it still didn't solve the problem of Hibari expecting him home. On the other hand, he could hardly bring Kaneda to Hibari's place. He suspected there wouldn't  _be_  a place anymore afterwards. He also guessed this was a promising way to create black holes.  
  
"Fine," Gokudera agreed, exploring the entire negative range of enthusiasm. "Eight o'clock. Give me your phone."  
  
"What for?" Kaneda blinked in confusion but reached into his pocket anyway.  
  
"So I can give you my address." Gokudera grabbed the cell phone and started typing. "Otherwise you might end up God knows where."  
  
"I think I can find you on my own." Kaneda's smile turned smug as he leaned back.  
  
"See?" Gokudera tossed the phone back to its owner and got up. "That's exactly the kind of thing nobody wants to hear."  
  
"But it's true," the swordsman informed Gokudera's retreating back over the noise of a full store. He was without a doubt grinning while doing so.  
  
"It's creepy, you fucker!" Gokudera yelled from the door. "And bring food!"  
  


\---

  
  
"Any news from your informant?" Hibari was signing papers while Gokudera shuffled around his office trying to be inconspicuous and failing spectacularly.  
  
"He's...," Gokudera searched for something that seemed at least remotely believable, "making some inquiries."  
  
"And it took you an hour and a half to get that out of him?" The pen was placed on top of the documents which meant that Gokudera had Hibari's undivided attention. He would rather have had the divided version - between him and six billion other people.  
  
"He's a tough one." Gokudera shrugged. That part was at least true. Now that Gokudera had a direct comparison it was hard to miss the family resemblance. Sadly, he didn't think he would ever be able to watch Hibari prepare tea again.  
  
"I'll meet up with him again later tonight," Gokudera added as casually as he dared, "see what he's got."  
  
Hibari's eyes narrowed for a second but when he picked up the pen Gokudera was obviously out of the proverbial danger zone. "I hope you told him that we don't trade favours with criminals. Neither do we  _pay_  them."  
  
"You're paying  _me_."  
  
"Yes. Too much."  
  
"Damn," Gokudera shook his head in mock pity and turned around to leave, "you really know how to motivate your employees, don't you? You're lucky the fringe benefits are good."  
  
That earned him a pencil against the back of his head but compared to everything else Hibari was prone to throw it almost counted as an endearment.  
  


\---

  
  
Two conclusions could be drawn from his talk with Hibari: One - the fact that Hibari hadn't so much as commented on Gokudera's whereabouts during his lunch time 'meeting' indicated that he hadn't actually left his radius. Otherwise, Gokudera reckoned, platoons of US Marshals and FBI agents would have been detached to scour the city until they had found him. Possibly also a good part of the National Guard. Hibari liked to be thorough, after all.  
  
And two - if Hibari had bothered to look at the tracking data from Gokudera's anklet at all it was obviously showing nothing unusual. If it had he was pretty sure directive number one would have been activated.  
  
It didn't make avoiding Hibari's piercing glares any easier though.


	5. Update

Gokudera slipped out when Hibari was in a meeting. It wasn't that he didn't  _want_  to speak with the agent. It was more like... accidentally avoiding verbal communication by shifting it to asynchronous methods. He left a post-it note on Hibari's computer screen. It may or may not have included the threat to do unspeakable things to his tea set should the agent feel the urge to follow him.  
  
Gokudera wasn't exactly looking forward to meeting Kaneda again. He couldn't say what it was but something was gnawing at the back of his mind like an army of termites - undetectable from the outside but slowly yet steadily destabilizing even the strongest of woodworks. He wasn't dreading Kaneda as such - even though Gokudera highly suspected that Kaneda's eternally sunny attitude in contrast to his occupation were the makings of a first-class psychopath. That didn't even bother him as much as it should have.  
  
It was something entirely different. He just couldn't put a name to the feeling. Only that it was oddly  _fluffy_. Nothing good ever came of something like that.  
  
He reached his room shortly before eight o'clock with Kaneda nowhere in sight. Good, because Gokudera felt like yelling at someone and if Kaneda was late that gave him a perfect excuse to do so.  
  
At first he was a little unsure of what to do, seeing as how he hadn't used this room in ages. A few of his belongings lay scattered on the shaky bed and it looked like the cleaning lady had forgotten this place even existed. Gokudera gave an exasperated sigh and decided to busy himself by trying to make this room look presentable.  
  
He might as well have tried to clean up an oil spill with a spoon but it occupied him for a while.  
  
Half an hour later Gokudera was stuffing the rest of his clothes into a closet when somebody knocked on his door. Gokudera smiled grimly as he slammed the closet door shut loud enough for anyone on the corridor to hear.  
  
"You're half an hour late, moron," Gokudera snarled as he yanked the door open. "Can't you read the clock?"  
  
"Uh, hi! Sorry I'm late." Kaneda sheepishly scratched at the back of his head and offered a hopeful smile before lifting a large plastic bag. "I stopped for food."  
  
"You could have done that half an hour earlier, stupid," Gokudera grumbled but stepped aside to let Kaneda in, "that way you would have been on time."  
  
Kaneda laughed and put the bag on the small table by the window. "I know, I know. But there's this awesome sushi restaurant just around the corner and the owner and I got talking and before I knew it was already way past eight."  
  
"I'm sorry." He turned around, offering up a bottle. "But I brought compensation."  
  
Gokudera was torn between dragging out the argument because he hadn't had a chance to yell yet and had the inexplicable desire to pet Kaneda's head. He went for the bottle instead, critically inspecting it.  
  
"Chianti?" Gokudera tried to keep the appreciation out of his voice. He recognised the name of the winery and he knew they didn't sell cheap stuff. But he would be damned if he let Kaneda know that.  
  
"It's from Italy, see?" Kaneda eagerly pointed at the label like a puppy that had found a treat.  
  
Gokudera rolled his eyes. "I can see that."  
  
"You're from Italy, right?"  
  
"Yes." Gokudera put the bottle on the table, his eyes narrowing. "Your point?"  
  
Kaneda gestured vaguely. "Well, I figured since you're from Italy and the wine is from Italy... I thought you might like it."  
  
 _I do_ , was Gokudera's first thought but he didn't say it out loud. Instead he gave a nonchalant shrug. "It's fine."  
  
Kaneda's face lit up immediately and Gokudera made sure to turn away before the swordsman could see him smiling.  
  
"So," Gokudera announced, sitting down on the bed, "can we talk business now?"  
  
"I thought we could eat first?" Kaneda looked as if Santa had brought him the wrong present.  
  
Gokudera heaved a sigh, "Look, I just-"  
  
"I get it." Kaneda's smile was quite possibly the saddest thing Gokudera had ever seen. It was just completely beyond him why someone would be sad about eating while working. "You want to be back soon."  
  
"Back where?" Gokudera squinted, trying to make sense of the sword idiot.  
  
"You know. With  _him_."  
  
Kaneda's tone suggested he was either greatly displeased that there even  _was_  a 'him' or he was having far greater trouble controlling his vocal cords than Gokudera had thought. He did have a point though. Hibari's place was definitely preferable. Even though Kaneda's presence wasn't exactly unpleasant. It was just  _unusual_.  
  
With Hibari it was one feeling at a time; Kaneda was a raging sea of contradicting emotions by comparison.  
  
"You mean Hibari?" Gokudera snorted but it wasn't quite as convincingly derisive as he had hoped. "I don't have a fucking curfew, idiot. I stay with him because it's convenient and it beats living in this shithole, that's all."  
  
Kaneda's brow furrowed. "I thought you two were together?"  
  
Gokudera flinched at the word. "We're not."  
  
"But the boss said-"  
  
"I don't fucking care what your boss says." Gokudera sought to cover the blush creeping onto his cheeks by carefully examining the meal Kaneda had brought. "We're not. Not really. Not by normal standards anyway. It's just-"  
  
He made the mistake of briefly looking up at Kaneda. The swordsman looked like a kid at a science fair - he couldn't completely understand what he was seeing but he was utterly fascinated by it.  
  
"It's complicated," Gokudera finally said with a long-drawn sigh. It wasn't just a set phrase. If anything they  _were_ complicated. Gokudera doubted that Hibari had a better understanding of what was going on between them, he just chose not to question it. Gokudera didn't either - he was too afraid of the answer.  
  
He wondered what Bianchi would make of this. He shuddered at the mere thought. It also served as a painful reminder why they were here in the first place.  
  
"Can we stop talking about me?" Gokudera took a pair of chopsticks and broke them apart, pointing them in Kaneda's general direction. "You already seem to know an awful lot about me anyway."  
  
Kaneda's hand darted for the back of his head again. It appeared to be a nervous habit. Or a rash.  
  
"I guess so," Kaneda agreed with an apologetic laugh, "our boss is very big on detailed intel. Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."  
  
"Congratulations, you're doing a bang-up job so far." Gokudera stabbed at a piece of meat in one of the boxes, not really feeling like eating.  
  
Kaneda flopped down on the single chair, its ominous creaking the only sound in the room for a while.  
  
"How come I don't know anything about you then?" Gokudera looked up just in time to watch Kaneda almost choke to death on some noodles.  
  
"Wh-what do you mean?" Kaneda managed between coughs.  
  
"Means I like to know who I'm working with." Gokudera shrugged and continued to dig through his box of sweet and sour chicken.  
  
"Okay...," Kaneda nodded once he was done coughing and reached for the bottle of Chianti, "fair's fair, I guess. What do you want to know?"  
  
"Just give me the best-of." Gokudera munched on a piece of chicken and gave the sword freak an expectant look.  
  
Kaneda fished two plastic cups from the bag and started to pour them both some wine. "Best-of, huh? I don't know... I was born in Japan. My dad owned a sushi restaurant. Like the one just around the corner. Best sushi in town, I tell you. My dad's, I mean. I don't know about this one."  
  
"What happened? Did the economy hit so hard that people couldn't afford to eat sushi anymore?" Gokudera grinned but it faltered quickly when Kaneda failed to acknowledge the joke.  
  
"No, nothing like that." Kaneda smiled but it was full of sorrow. "He's dead."  
  
 _Way to go, jerk_ , Gokudera mentally slapped himself. Great start for a conversation.  
  
"Sorry." Gokudera avoided Kaneda's gaze until he heard the swordsman laugh.  
  
"What for? You couldn't have known."  
  
Gokudera grimaced. He didn't get Kaneda; he could go from melancholy to perfectly cheery within the blink of an eye. Something had to be wrong with him.  
  
"Other than that I'm not sure there's even anything interesting about me." Kaneda smiled, almost as if he felt it was his fault for not being more intriguing. Gokudera didn't buy it.  
  
"You're working as a killer for what I can only presume to be the devil in human form," Gokudera deadpanned, "I'd say there's definitely something interesting about you."  
  
Kaneda's laughter sounded horribly misplaced in this tiny, shabby room. It sounded like something that belonged in an open field. There were probably birds and butterflies involved as well.  
  
"You got me there." The swordsman chuckled, taking a sip from his Chianti. "I wanted to become a professional baseball player when I was a kid. I wasn't even half bad. But then I busted my shoulder and... that was it for this dream."  
  
"How exactly does this explain you being a sword-swinging idiot?"  
  
"I wasn't very good in school."  
  
"That explains why you're an idiot, yes," Gokudera mocked. "Doesn't explain the sword thing."  
  
Kaneda smirked briefly - before he presented Gokudera with a full-blown grin. "You're funny, you know that?"  
  
Gokudera gulped down a good portion of his wine before deigning to reply to that. "Yeah, I'm hilarious. Now answer the question."  
  
It seemed to faze Kaneda that Gokudera wouldn't get off the topic. He kept taking ever larger sips of wine and the chair he was sitting on betrayed every movement he made with a cacophony of creaks and squeals.  
  
"I don't know," he eventually gave in, "I fell in with the wrong crowd. And it turned out that I was..."  
  
"Good at killing people?" Gokudera provided.  
  
Kaneda obviously didn't like the sound of that, judging by his least amused expression yet. "I try not to. But sometimes... sometimes people don't  _listen_."  
  
"And you think chopping their heads off will help?"  
  
It was Kaneda's turn to grimace. "No. But my boss certainly seems to think so."  
  
"Like father, like son, huh?" Gokudera mumbled, more to himself than anyone else but Kaneda caught that too of course.  
  
Strangely, he smiled. "It's kind of weird thinking that the old man has a son. And that he's with the FBI no less. I wonder how someone like that gets into law enforcement?"  
  
Gokudera smirked. "Good question. How does a boy from Japan with a fondness for sushi and baseball get to be a professional hitman?"  
  
For a moment Kaneda just stared blankly at him. Gokudera tensed, ready to defend himself should he have crossed a line but the moment passed and Kaneda broke out into open laughter.  
  
"I like you. I really do," Kaneda said between bouts of giggles.  
  
"Don't say that." Gokudera tried to will the warmth that this statement induced away. It was only marginally successful.  
  
"Why? It's a fact."  
  
"You hardly even know me, you moron!" Gokudera yelled. He didn't even know why. It wasn't even particularly liberating but he couldn't stop himself. "How can you say that?"  
  
Kaneda's easy-going smile was impossible to overthrow. "Ah, but you said it earlier - I already know a lot about you."  
  
Gokudera blinked, momentarily stalled in his outburst. To his horror he was at a loss for words.  
  
"You," he settled back down and pointed his chopsticks at Kaneda like deadly weapons, "are getting creepier by the minute."  
  
All Kaneda did was laugh, whole-heartedly and with a kind of innocence a sword-wielding dealer of death shouldn't be capable of. Gokudera realised with a great deal of discomfort that he was beginning to think of it as 'cute'.  
  


\---

  
  
The evening went by with fewer annoyances than Gokudera had anticipated. Kaneda turned out to be a surprisingly able partner in crime. He'd brought floor plans and blueprints of the company building, schematics of the security system, shift rotations, detailed descriptions of the container they were supposed to be stealing, pretty much anything Gokudera could have asked for.  
  
It was a thief's wet dream.  
  
Gokudera also found out that Kaneda tended to ask a lot less stupid questions when he was focused. In fact, they were both so concentrated on their task neither of them noticed the clock striking midnight. Or two in the morning, for that matter.  
  
"Wow." Kaneda yawned, twisting his hand to look at his watch. "It's already that late?"  
  
"Apparently." Gokudera rubbed at his eyes. The lines were beginning to blur. He needed either coffee or sleep.  
  
"How about we call it a day?" Kaneda suggested, slumping back in his chair.  
  
Gokudera gave the blueprint he'd been staring at for the last ten minutes another hateful look and nodded. "Agreed."  
  
"Thank God," Kaneda let his head fall back to lean against the headrest, "I think I stopped thinking about two hours ago."  
  
"I'm not even gonna comment on that." Gokudera groaned when he rolled off the bed and stretched. He'd been laying there for the better part of an hour and his elbows hurt like hell.  
  
"Well," Kaneda got up, swinging his formerly discarded jacket over his shoulder, "I guess I should be going then."  
  
"Unless you want to sleep in the bathtub your guess is correct."  
  
Kaneda made a disgusted face. "Uh, no, thanks. I've seen the bathtub."  
  
"I know. That was the point of my-," Gokudera waved it off, "ah, forget it."  
  
He opened the door to let Kaneda out, lazily leaning against it. "I'll see you tomorrow then."  
  
"Sure thing." Kaneda offered him a grin that seemed remarkably awake. Other than that he didn't move. He stood in the doorway as if he expected something to happen.  
  
"Try to be punctual this time, idiot," Gokudera reprimanded just to fill the silence.  
  
That invoked the nervous hand-to-neck-rubbing motion again which Gokudera was getting strangely used to. "Okay."  
  
Kaneda still wasn't leaving. He looked antsy; as if he was trying to decide which horse to bet on. It was getting on Gokudera's nerves.  
  
He sagged against the door. "What's the fucking matter? You glued to the floor or what?"  
  
The swordsman laughed sheepishly but didn't reply. Instead he leaned in and kissed Gokudera; not full on the lips but not a peck on the cheek either so that it could count as a mishap. It was warm and smooth and just a tiny bit wet and it lasted just long enough to wash all the snark out of Gokudera's reply.  
  
 _What the freaking hell?!_  was what Gokudera wanted to say. What came out of his mouth was: "Uh?"  
  
"Good night." Kaneda beamed at him and headed off towards the stairs before Gokudera could round up all of his brain cells.  
  
Gokudera remained behind, blinking dumbly at the empty corridor for about five minutes before it finally occurred to him to close the door. His face felt as if he was standing too close to an open fire. His mind provided him with an endless loop of recaps and tons of implications.  
  
He leaned his back against the door and tried to figure out why he hadn't punched Kaneda in the face. He was pretty sure that would have been an appropriate response - for him, at least. Either his reflexes were severely lacking or he simply hadn't wanted to.  
  
Gokudera gazed up at the ugliest ceiling in the world and fought against the fidgety feeling spreading through his body. "I am so screwed."


	6. Reset

When Gokudera was small Bianchi had once told him that love was like butterflies, dancing in your belly. Even back then Gokudera had thought it was gross. Besides, nothing he felt even remotely reminded him of butterflies.  
  
What he felt for Hibari was probably best compared to a horde of rhinos, stampeding all over his other emotions and mostly rendering him incapable of utterly hating the bastard. Anything associated with Kaneda recently was more like ant colonies, conglomerating to build a gigantic ant hill right there in his chest.  
  
No butterflies; hence, Gokudera reasoned he couldn't possibly be in love with either of the two. It was ridiculous anyway. Hibari was an egocentric fuck and Kaneda was a stupid baseball freak - besides the proven high of exceptional sex in case A and potentially extraordinary sex in case B there was certainly nothing Gokudera would consider loveable about them.  
  
It still didn't explain why he was feeling so goddamned guilty.  
  
Maybe there was a flaw in his theory. Perhaps it was butterflies for Bianchi and horrible, devastating stampedes and insects for Gokudera. It figured nature would give him the worst of it all.  
  


\---

  
  
It was half past ten when Gokudera eventually shambled into the office. Sleep had graced him with its presence for about two hours that night and not even the sunglasses were able to hide the bags under his eyes. He was sipping on his second coffee-to-go when he stepped through the glass doors to Hibari's department.  
  
He found it in an unusual state.  
  
For one, nobody seemed to be working. The entire staff was apparently mesmerised by the scene in Hibari's office. Even Kusakabe was not pouring over a stack of paperwork for once but stood next to his desk and stared at his boss's office with a look of concern on his face.  
  
"Morning," Gokudera grumbled, walking up to Kusakabe, "what's with the free show?"  
  
"I wish I knew." Kusakabe gave a tentative shrug. "They've been going at it for the better part of an hour now."  
  
'It' being a display of what counted as a heated argument in Hibari's world - which meant that the second occupant of the room was trying to avoid getting corrective surgery by tonfa. So far, the blond newcomer was doing surprisingly well. He appeared to have some practice.  
  
"Who's goldilocks?" Gokudera inquired while watching with a tang of jealousy how easily the stranger was evading Hibari's blows.  
  
"His name is Dino Cavallone," Kusakabe explained. "He's the head of the organised crime division."  
  
"Then he's way out of his jurisdiction," Gokudera mused, gulping down the last of his coffee. "And he came with no backup? That's either stupid or... no, actually, it's just stupid."  
  
Kusakabe shot him a sideways glance and smiled. "He's fine without backup. They've known each other for a long time."  
  
For some reason which was completely beyond Gokudera he jerked at the notion. The paper cup he'd meant to casually toss into the trash landed on the floor, ungraceful and pathetic.  
  
It did shine a new light on the ease with which this Cavallone guy made Hibari miss swing after swing. It had taken Gokudera over five months and several lengthy visits to the hospital to anticipate Hibari's moves. Of course, the fact that Gokudera got to see a whole different set of moves in the bedroom had helped.  
  
He dreaded to even contemplate how well they had to know each other for the blonde to master this level of skill. And he was laughing too. Gokudera wasn't sure how he felt about the new arrival but it definitely wasn't friendly.  
  
"If he came alone then who's Don Corleone over there?" Gokudera nodded towards a man sitting at a free desk, quietly sipping coffee. He didn't seem to be bothered by the display in Hibari's office. And if that hadn't been a dead giveaway that he didn't belong here the fact that he was wearing a moustache certainly was. Hibari had a highly defective relationship with facial hair. Some of his subordinates had been very painfully introduced to this quirk of his.  
  
"Oh, that's Romario." Kusakabe didn't even divert his attention from the scene in the office. "He's... just a failsafe."  
  
Gokudera gaped at the stranger. "Failsafe for  _what_?"  
  
Kusakabe's expression resembled that of a Vietnam veteran recalling scenes he had hoped were long forgotten. "So it doesn't get ugly."  
  
"So he  _is_  backup."  
  
"Not exactly."  
  
Gokudera blinked, his gaze travelling from the glass walls of Hibari's office to Romario and back to Kusakabe. He'd seen B-movies that made more sense.  
  
He gave in and decided to let it be for now; he could try and get behind this bizarre showcase later.  
  
"So, why are they here? I thought you guys don't investigate organised crime over here?"  
  
"Apparently, that's part of the problem." Kusakabe heaved a sigh and sat back down, instantly concentrating on his papers. "You may want to take off your sunglasses, by the way."  
  
Gokudera snorted. "Why? It's a free fucking countr-"  
  
"Gokudera Hayato." The door to Hibari's office flew open and within a second a good dozen FBI agents tried to look as busy as possible. It was like watching a panicked version of musical chairs. And yet Hibari's voice managed to confidently outmatch it all. But Gokudera recognised the tone - it was the same a judge would use when passing a sentence.  
  
He glanced at Hibari's right hand man and frowned. "How the fuck did you know he was gonna come out?"  
  
Kusakabe offered him a sympathetic smile. "Years of practice, I would say."  
  
"So, it gets easier?"  
  
"No, not really."  
  
Gokudera rolled his eyes and decided to leave it at that. Besides, he had more urgent matters to tend to. Hibari's expression promised several rounds of tonfa-evasion-training.  
  
"Glasses." Hibari held out his hand without looking when Gokudera tried to pass him by.  
  
"Just so we're clear, these are mine and I want them back afterwards," Gokudera growled but took off his sunglasses anyway. Hibari stowed them away in his breast pocket, turning on his heel and walking back to his desk.  
  
"Gokudera Hayato. This is Dino Cavallone from headquarters." Hibari curtly gestured in the blond agent's direction. Gokudera swallowed when he saw the movement. He might as well have been talking to Hibari's father. He'd previously thought that one Hibari was bad but knowing that there was a senior version of him out there offered a whole new world of horror.  
  
Cavallone smiled amicably, reaching out to shake Gokudera's hand. "Hi. I've already heard a lot about you. Pleasure to finally meet you."  
  
Gokudera discreetly disentangled his hand from Cavallone's grasp. "Yeah... we'll see about that. Why don't you tell me what the everloving fuck is going on?"  
  
"I rather think you should be telling  _us_." Hibari's glare could put the coldest winter to shame. Gokudera shivered but before he got to spit out an angry yet likely unjustified answer Cavallone butted in with a placating laugh.  
  
"I think what Kyouya is trying to say is that you're apparently involved in one of our ongoing investigations and... well, I presume you  _forgot_  to tell your handler."  
  
"Don't correct me," Hibari growled, "and don't call me by my first name."  
  
Cavallone, oblivious of the mortal danger he'd manoeuvred himself into, presented them with a bemused smile that rivalled even Kaneda's in intensity. "Oh come on, Kyouya, we've known each other long enough. Anyway-"  
  
He shot Hibari a quick look but the dark-haired agent refused to respond. Cavallone took it as an invitation to go on. "- as I was saying, you seem to be involved in one of our cases. You've been contacted by a criminal organisation called 'Falcon', right?"  
  
Gokudera shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
The blond agent's brow furrowed as he pulled a massive file from his briefcase and began flipping through it. "I'm not sure denial will get you anywhere. I have it on pretty good authority that you're in contact with them."  
  
Meanwhile, something wooden broke. They both looked at Hibari who was a picture-perfect example of calmness - except for the two pieces of pencil he placed in plain sight on his desk, his eyes never leaving Gokudera. If he'd put up a neon sign the warning couldn't have been clearer:  _Stop lying or deal with the consequences._  
  
The way Gokudera saw it there were consequences no matter what he was going to do. But perhaps it was time to lay his cards on the table. He'd hoped to catch Hibari in a quieter moment though - preferably during post-coital bliss. But if he valued his health now was the time to come clean.  
  
"Okay," Gokudera cleared his throat, "maybe they did. Whatever their name is. They didn't exactly introduce themselves."  
  
Cavallone smiled briefly at that. "No, I figure they wouldn't. Either way, I've been informed that they hired you to break into the Neuberg BioChem laboratories."  
  
"'Hired' is not the word I would use but yes." Gokudera's eyes narrowed. "Who the hell told you that?"  
  
"We have an agent in place." Cavallone certainly seemed proud of this. He handed Gokudera another file. "He's been undercover for almost two years now. I believe you've met him?"  
  
"I'm pretty sure I would have noticed meeting an FBI-," Gokudera stopped dead in his tracks. He closed his eyes for a moment, somehow hoping that it would make all of this go away. It didn't.  
  
When he squinted down at the document in his hands it was still Kaneda's happy-go-lucky, perfect-son-in-law likeness smiling back up at him. Only, his name wasn't Kaneda at all. Apparently, Gokudera had been spending last night with someone called Yamamoto Takeshi.  
  
And all of a sudden a lot of things were making sense; Kaneda's - no,  _Yamamoto's_  - strangely evasive behaviour, his reluctance to talk about his past. No wonder he didn't want to mention it - technically, Kaneda didn't  _have_  a past.  
  
"I, uh... I may have run into him, yes." Gokudera shoved the file back at Cavallone. His hands had gone stone-cold and his mind was a cooking pot full of shock, disappointment and anger, with a side-helping of good old frustration because he had failed to spot a goddamned FBI agent.  
  
"It must have been a lot more than that," Cavallone gave a hearty laugh and nudged Gokudera, winking, "he barely shuts up about you."  
  
Somewhere something creaked; it sounded like hard plastic fast approaching its maximum capacity to endure pressure. Gokudera pointedly avoided looking in Hibari's direction.  
  
"He's an idiot." Gokudera reacted in the only way he knew - by counter-attacking. It mattered only marginally that there was nothing to counter. "It's a miracle he's survived this long."  
  
"He's our best man." Cavallone smiled, seemingly ignoring Gokudera's derisive comment. Or perhaps he knew it was baseless anyway.  
  
"I weep for the trade." Gokudera grimaced but it was just the empty shell of an insult.  
  
"No need to." Cavallone waved it off, leaving Gokudera wondering if he even got the sarcasm. "He's helped bring down a few major players. Without him we wouldn't even have the tiniest lead on Falcon."  
  
Gokudera's mind did a proverbial double-take at that. Even if Kaneda -  _Yamamoto, goddammit_  - hadn't known about the elder Hibari's son then he certainly did so now. He had to have told his superiors about it. But if so Cavallone was not showing any signs of distrust towards his fellow FBI agent. Either Cavallone was even more easy-going than Yamamoto or the Bureau simply hadn't been informed yet.  
  
Which left open the question of how much Hibari knew.  
  
"Okay, yeah, I get it," Gokudera rolled his eyes, "he's the shit. Now what do you want from me?"  
  
"We want you to play along." Cavallone's expression turned serious which was disconcerting considering that up until now he'd done the nothing-but-blue-skies impression rather well.  
  
Gokudera blinked in confusion. "What? You want me to actually go steal... whatever it is they want me to steal?"  
  
The blond agent nodded. "Yes. See, Falcon is still a relatively new group compared to their competition but they are on the rise. We can still stop them but the only way we can do this is by cutting them down from the top."  
  
Gokudera couldn't help his gaze wandering over to Hibari. To untrained eyes he showed no reaction but Gokudera had been through the Hibari crash course and he'd learned his lesson well. Everything about the agent screamed 'defence', from the way he was sitting in his chair to the way he deliberately focused solely on Cavallone. Gokudera got his answer without ever posing the question.  
  
Hibari was trying to figure out if his colleague knew anything. He was obviously not the least bit worried about Gokudera. It was a little bit insulting.  
  
"Yamamoto managed to become their boss's right hand man," Cavallone further explained, "he's done his best but we have next to no information about the man. He's extremely cautious and anyone who might find out too much about him ends up face down in the gutter."  
  
This sent a shiver down Gokudera's spine. He'd seen Yamamoto's skill with a blade. He wondered if the agent had been the one to carry out all those kill orders. Gokudera was aware that the Bureau sometimes turned a blind eye if one of their agents was forced to commit a petty crime in order to save face but murder? That was a bit more than just one eye. On the other hand, how else would Yamamoto have been able to keep up his cover for so long?  
  
"That's why we need to catch him in the act." Cavallone fished another file from the briefcase, causing Gokudera to marvel at the sheer amount of paperwork this case was generating. "We've cut off some of Falcon's most promising business deals in the hopes of forcing them to retreat but it seems they had a few aces up their sleeves that even Yamamoto didn't know about."  
  
Yet another file landed in Gokudera's hands as the agent continued: "They're about to close a major deal with a Columbian drug cartel. From what we could gather it's about the delivery of a new drug. It's supposed to be ten times more effective than what's on the market right now and it will flood our streets in no time if we don't stop them."  
  
Gokudera skimmed over the pages, shaking his head. "I don't understand. What has this heist got to do with anyth-"  
  
He broke off as the puzzle pieces finally clicked into place. He had researched all companies employing the stolen algorithm. Neuberg BioChem was a large firm, dealing in everything from food research to cosmetics. There were literally dozens of wholly-owned companies and locations all over the world - but the only branch where they had installed this particular keypad system was at their local facility.  
  
It was where they kept all their military research.   
  
"Oh  _fuck_." Even Gokudera had to admit that Hibari's dad had to have some guts if that was indeed his plan. "They don't have a new drug yet, do they? They're planning on stealing one."  
  
"Yamamoto said you were a sharp one." Cavallone smiled briefly. "You're right. We think they're after a chemical that Neuberg is developing for the DoD. It was originally designed to help minimize fuel expenses but-"  
  
"Let me guess," Gokudera sighed, "it makes cocaine seem like fizzy candy powder?"  
  
"Something like that," the agent admitted, "actually, it boosts its effectiveness while making it literally undetectable for us. You could disguise it as flour and get truckloads of it over the border without anyone being the wiser."  
  
"Oh great." Gokudera slumped down on one of the free chairs. In the light of recent revelations his previous worries appeared quite irrelevant. "Fucking  _great_. I'm going to help Hib-"  
  
He stopped before he could verbally shoot himself in the foot. A quick glance at Hibari told him that his slip-up hadn't gone unnoticed. The agent was sitting there like a human stepping stone, his eyes narrowed and fixed on Gokudera. He looked like a stock market broker reading the Financial Times and trying to calculate his losses.  
  
Cavallone, on the other hand, wasn't paying it much attention at all. "Don't worry, we'll catch them before any of it can hit the streets. We just need for the deal to actually go down to make anything stick. And in order to do that we need you to work with Yamamoto on that heist."  
  
"What about my sister?" It irritated Gokudera that everyone seemed to believe he was doing this out of free will. "If anything happens to her I swear to God I will-"  
  
"We'll keep your sister safe." The blonde offered him an encouraging smile. "Nothing will happen to her. I promise."  
  
Gokudera looked from one FBI agent to the other. He was literally caught between a rock and a hard place - one of which apparently had a bone to pick with him. Judging by Hibari's intensifying scowl it was a big one. Well, Gokudera had a whole  _bag_  full of bones to respond with.  
  
"Alright, fine." He sunk lower in his seat, throwing up his hands in defeat. "I'll do it."


	7. Confirm

_"Do you always have to one-up yourself, Hayato?"_  On the other end of the line Shamal let out a heavy sigh. It annoyed Gokudera to no end.  
  
"I am not responsible for any of this goddamned bullshit, alright?" He was walking up and down the parking lot again. It was beginning to serve as his secondary office. At least it had a view.  
  
 _"You mean like last time with the Varia?"_  
  
Gokudera bit his lip and squinted into the midday sun above him. "Don't mention that. Ever."  
  
He had a very physical reminder of his involvement with the Varia. He still flinched every time Hibari's fingers brushed over the scarred bullet wound on his back. Gokudera was the last person who wanted a repeat of that incident. He just hoped that having the FBI on his side for once would help.  
  
"Anyway, got any news on the photograph?"  
  
 _"Yeah, but it seems like your friends at the FBI have already done half the work for you."_  
  
"What do you mean 'half the work'?" Gokudera hadn't been aware he was delegating.  
  
 _"They've taken your sister into custody. Or rather, the Carabinieri have."_  
  
"They did  _what_?"  
  
 _"Apparently, they're charging her with murder."_  Shamal sounded as if he couldn't quite believe he was saying this,  _"They say she poisoned someone."_  
  
Cavallone's words still rang in Gokudera's ears. ' _We'll keep your sister safe._ ' This wasn't safe - this was fucking ridiculous!  
  
"They're supposed to keep an eye on her! Not throw her into prison, goddammit!" Gokudera's fist left a visible dent in the hood of a random car. He wished it had been Hibari's; or that moron Cavallone's. He also wished metal wasn't so freaking _hard_.  
  
Gokudera shook his hand, hissing to himself. "Shit, shit, shit. They're gonna know I talked to the FBI. They're gonna come after us."  
  
 _"Us? No, no, no. You, maybe. Not us."_  
  
"Shut up, you coward," Gokudera bellowed, "I wasn't talking to you."  
  
 _"Okay, brontolone. But just so you know, it's probably the best thing they could do. Right now, prison is the safest place for her. They're keeping her at the Carabinieri headquarters in Rome. This guy's arm would have to be really long to reach her in there."_  
  
Gokudera wasn't so fast to give up on the idea of the FBI being a bunch of stupid first-graders. "Do you honestly believe they'll fall for that? Come on. They would have to be complete idiots to think that this is just a coincidence."  
  
 _"Coincidence or not. It keeps her out of their range. All they need to do is make you believe that they can still get to her."_  
  
"What makes you think they can't?"  
  
 _"I didn't say that. They just probably won't. It's too much trouble and if anything goes wrong it'll put a big damned spotlight on them. I doubt that's the kind of attention they want right now."_  
  
Gokudera relaxed a little. Shamal had a point there. Still, somebody had ordered the Italian police to arrest  _his sister_. Obviously, somebody needed to get their arse kicked. It was a matter of principle.  
  
"What are you doing out here?"  
  
Speaking of arse-kicking; Gokudera spun around only to find himself face to face with numero uno on his People-I-Absolutely-Do-Not-Want-To-See-Right-Now list.  
  
Gokudera snapped the cell phone shut, wiggling it. "Tap-dancing. What do you think, asshole?"  
  
Hibari didn't care much for mock answers. He took a step closer. "I thought we had agreed on you dropping the lies?"  
  
Gokudera could only laugh at that, as hysteric as it was. "Are you kidding me?  _You're_  the one who failed to mention his gangster father!"  
  
"I have nothing to do with that man anymore." Hibari's voice was a low growl but Gokudera was not susceptible to intimidation at the moment. "I didn't know he was in town. You should have told me."  
  
"And tell you what exactly? 'Hey, Kyouya, met your dad today. He's threatening to kill my sister but besides that he's a nice chap'?" Gokudera poked a finger at Hibari's chest. "No, no, no! You're not spinning this on me. Not this time, asshole. _You're_  the one who's been lying. You knew. You knew the entire fucking time!"  
  
Hibari refused to stand down; he also refused to understand that it would have been nice to know that Gokudera was having an affair with the son of the freaking devil. "There is nothing to talk about. I haven't seen him since I was a child. It was nothing you needed to know."  
  
It was tough getting Hibari to see that sometimes 'need to know' was a liar's dirty, little refuge. Just because you didn't tell someone didn't mean it couldn't come back to haunt your ass.  
  
"Stop treating me like some goddamned internal investigator!" Gokudera gesticulated wildly. "You can keep your secrets from the FBI. I don't give a flying fuck. But you can at least tell  _me_. You know my freaking life-story, the least you could do is drop a line about your dad being a bloody yakuza gangster boss!"  
  
"He's not part of my life anymore." There was a brief glint of metal as the tonfa slid into Hibari's hands. He kept them at his sides though, waiting for Gokudera to react to this open threat.  
  
But what Gokudera did with open threats was to return them - mostly tenfold. He shoved at Hibari's chest, causing the agent to take a step back and roughly bump into a car. "Well, guess what, genius. He's  _back_  and he's blackmailing me. That  _makes_  him a part of your life because he happens to be part of mine."  
  
"He's a case like any other." Hibari never hesitated and he never sounded like he had doubts - except for now.  
  
"Bullshit!" Gokudera dug his metaphorical claws into that loophole and kept yanking. "He's not. And you know it. So tell me, Mr Nice-and-proper, does the Bureau know who your dad is? Or did you just happen to forget filling that out on your application?"  
  
For a moment Hibari looked genuinely ready to strike him down in one single, devastating blow. Gokudera only snorted. "Don't fucking worry, bastard. Yamamoto didn't rat you out so I won't either. That's a mess you have to sort out yourself."  
  
"Don't tell me what to do," Hibari snarled, back in Gokudera's personal space with a vengeance. But today Gokudera was more than a force to reckon with.  
  
"You know what, that's exactly what I'm doing, you self-righteous little fuck!" Gokudera felt his fingers curl into fists and there was nothing he could do about it. He was sick of people making decisions over his head, stringing him along like a street mongrel; and most of all he was sick of living on a need-to-know basis. Especially, with Hibari. The agent needed to learn that if this was indeed a relationship it was 'Give a little - Take a little' and not 'Wait until the other person gets swallowed by the holes in my personal history'.  
  
For now, what Gokudera gave him was a punch in the face.  
  
It took both of them by surprise; Hibari reacted just a smidge too late while Gokudera didn't really count on hitting home. But there it was - an ugly scratch along Hibari's left cheekbone, courtesy of one of Gokudera's rings. They both stared at each other in complete, startled silence.  
  
Gokudera was still angry, he could feel it winding through his insides like fiery snakes making it hard to breathe. He didn't know what to do with it, so he did what had already failed to help when he was a kid - he ran.  
  
He didn't wait for Hibari to reply - not to mention, hit him back. He turned on his heel, storming off to the exit. "Don't follow me. And don't fucking call me."  
  
He didn't look back.  
  


\---

  
  
In retrospect, his life had been easier as a thief. All he'd had to worry about back then were security systems, maybe a guard here and there and the quickest way out. Security systems were easy enough to hack, guards had a schedule and there was no place on earth that had no escape.  
  
This right now was chaos; pure and utter  _chaos_.  
  
He had a partner he didn't quite hate, a sister in prison and on the constant verge of getting killed on his behalf, and a sword idiot with a crush and a badge. And with the sole exception of Bianchi he couldn't trust any of them.  
  
Gokudera sat on the edge of the small fountain and sighed, cigarette unlit between his lips. He wasn't even feeling like smoking which was probably the worst of it all.  
  
"Need a light?"  
  
Gokudera didn't have to turn around to know who it was. He ignored the offer. "You are not exactly my favourite person right now,  _special agent Yamamoto_."  
  
He took great care to place some extra venom into the last few words.  
  
"They told you, huh?" Yamamoto plopped down next to him.  
  
"Yeah." Gokudera determinedly looked the other way.  
  
"Look, if there had been any way to tell you without blowing my cover I would have." Yamamoto was doing the puppy-dog expression, for sure, but Gokudera didn't care.  
  
"You had plenty of opportunity when we were at my place," Gokudera snapped. "But instead you had to go and  _kiss me_ of all things. You need to sort out your priorities, man."  
  
Yamamoto smiled, a sad little thing that couldn't even chase away the chill of the early evening air. "I'm sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time."  
  
"And telling me about your undercover activities didn't?"  
  
"I had to talk to Dino first." Yamamoto gave a vaguely helpless shrug. "I wasn't allowed to tell you."  
  
Gokudera knew he was being unfair; just like hitting Hibari had been. But having twice the guilt trip did nothing to help lift his spirits.  
  
"Er... just to clarify...," Yamamoto began after a few minutes of contemplative silence, "are you mad because I didn't tell you or because I kissed you?"  
  
Gokudera stared at the swordsman, momentarily at a loss for intelligent, or even snotty things to say. He was definitely mad about  _something_  but it was none of those. Alright, he was still a bit bummed about not recognising an FBI agent when he saw one but he blamed it on being distracted by one nasty sword and a really fucking blinding smile. And the kiss was something entirely different altogether anyway.  
  
"I'm... not mad," Gokudera said in an attempt at diplomacy. He had never claimed to be good at it.  
  
Yamamoto nodded and then promptly frowned. "Wait. That doesn't answer my question, does it?"  
  
Gokudera cringed. "Isn't it enough that I'm not mad?"  
  
The sword freak probably thought he was being subtle but Gokudera very well noticed he was scooting closer. Gokudera shivered; shockingly, he wasn't sure if it was from the stern breeze or from some weird sort of anticipation. Or from the thought that right now, Hibari was most likely sitting in his office  _knowing_  that Gokudera was tempted to physically elaborate on that goodnight kiss. Spite made people do crazy things and Gokudera was harbouring a lot of it right now.  
  
"I don't know," Yamamoto said with a sheepish smile, "I would just like to be sure."  
  
Gokudera tucked his hands under his arms and scowled at his companion. "If you don't drop it right the fuck now you'll get to see me mad, I can promise you that."  
  
Yamamoto held up his hands in defence, laughing. "Alright, alright. I get the point."  
  
"Good." Gokudera nodded firmly. They sat in silence for a long while, letting the crowd wander past them like pilgrims to unknown places. They were both immersed in their own thoughts, although Gokudera suspected that Yamamoto's were a lot happier than his. On the other hand, it was surprisingly difficult to hold a grudge in Yamamoto's presence - not matter against who. The sword wielder was a never-ending pool of lightheartedness, as if nothing in the world could possibly go wrong. And if it did he made it seem like something that could be easily fixed.  
  
In a fucked-up way he was like Hibari - they saw a problem, they tackled it. Only, Yamamoto gave it an honest try and Hibari tended to beat it up. Hibari liked to work around the approach and go straight for the solution.  
  
In a horrible moment of absolute delusion Gokudera realised that if merged together they would make the perfect man. He quickly discarded the thought, wrapping his jacket even tighter around himself.  
  
Yamamoto suddenly perked up like a ten-year-old ready to show daddy his homework. "Hey, I was thinking... How about we get all the stuff from your place and head over to mine? I could cook for you."  
  
As much as Gokudera would have liked to deny it food did indeed sound good. He hadn't eaten all day due to several appetite-reducing incidents. His stomach was completely oblivious to the rest of him being in emotional turmoil.  
  
He frowned at Yamamoto. "Do you mean 'cooking' or just throwing raw fish together and making me eat it?"  
  
The swordsman laughed. "If you're willing to help me a little I think I can make anything work."  
  
 _I bet you can_ , Gokudera thought and desperately tried to quell the urge to laugh along with him.  
  
"Okay, whatever." Gokudera stood up. "But I'm warning you: no funny business, you hear?"  
  
Yamamoto got up as well and nodded reassuringly. "No funny business. Promise."

 

\---

 _brontolone_  (Ital.) - 'crabber'/'grumbler'


	8. Escape

Gokudera toed off his shoes and followed Yamamoto into his apartment, his steps slightly muffled by the carpeted floor.  
  
He dropped the bag that held their combined works from the previous night on the small but comfy-looking couch in the living room. It was a tiny apartment compared to Hibari's house. But it made an unbelievably more lived-in impression.  
  
"Is this  _your_  apartment or just your cover's?" Gokudera asked while peering around the room. It was stuffed to the brink with book shelves and things he reckoned to be memorabilia of some kind. Funny, he hadn't pegged Yamamoto to be much of a reader. Although, at closer inspection most volumes proved to be somehow related to baseball. That actually explained a lot.  
  
"It's mine." Yamamoto winked and placed his finger against his lips in a conspiratorial gesture. "Shhh. Don't tell anyone."  
  
"It's...," Gokudera sought for an adjective that didn't sound condescending. He gave up and went for the obvious: "It's small."  
  
Yamamoto traipsed into the kitchen, his laughter lingering behind him like a lifeline. "I'm not home much. But it's enough for me."  
  
Gokudera followed and watched the swordsman unpack the groceries they had picked up on the way. He was vaguely aware that he should have felt embarrassed to be in Yamamoto's apartment; or if not that then at least uncomfortable or cautious. But he was certainly not supposed to feel  _at home_. He figured it was an effect the sword idiot had on everyone. He could have made Gokudera feel at ease in a freaking cardboard box under a bridge.  
  
That was the difference between him and Hibari; the agent would have swooped him up and carried him out of there, kicking and screaming if necessary.  
  
Gokudera shook his head, telling himself to stop comparing the two. There was nothing to compare because you only started comparing if you had an equal interest in both things. And he didn't. He was almost one-hundred percent sure that he didn't.  
  
"Would you give me a hand with the tomatoes?" Yamamoto's voice cut into his train of thought like a faulty track switch.  
  
"Huh? What?"  
  
Yamamoto juggled a tomato between his hands, grinning. "Tomatoes. You know, red, round, squishy vegetables?"  
  
Gokudera grimaced and snatched the knife Yamamoto had laid out, "I thought you were the sword expert. And besides, tomatoes are not vegetables. Botanically, they're fruit."  
  
"Well, whatever they are," the swordsman shoved a cutting board under Gokudera's hands, "they need slicing."  
  
"Shut up, idiot, and get started on the meat."  
  
Yamamoto only chuckled at Gokudera's indignation and moved to prepare the rest of the ingredients. Gokudera tried hard to ignore the shiver that ran down his spine every time he caught Yamamoto playfully spinning his knife as if his fingers had never held anything else. In that regard he was very  _very_  much like Hibari.  
  


\---

  
  
They made Spaghetti Bolognese because Gokudera didn't trust Yamamoto with anything else. It was a decent meal though. Its leftovers were now decorating the tiny coffee table while the rest of the room was plastered with schematics and various print-outs. Due to a lack of unoccupied seating opportunities they had both made themselves comfortable on the floor in between the mess.  
  
"I still don't see why we can't go in earlier," Yamamoto whined, "any night is as good as Saturday."  
  
"Idiot." Gokudera rolled up the set of blueprints and slapped Yamamoto over the head with it.  
  
"Ouch!" The swordsman rubbed his head and gave him a hurt look.  
  
"Saturday is our only chance," Gokudera explained, a little testy since he couldn't understand how this was in any way not obvious. "It's the night of that big baseball game. Yankees against... who the fuck ever. Anyway, the guards will probably be more focused on the game than their duty."  
  
Yamamoto's shoulders drooped. "I know. I was just thinking if we went in a day early maybe we could go see that game..."  
  
A crumpled ball of paper landed square in Yamamoto's face.  
  
"Stop being such a dumbhead," Gokudera reprimanded but it was tough staying angry when Yamamoto looked like a heap of misery. "Focus. You know what's at stake."  
  
Yamamoto heaved a heavy sigh but apparently resigned himself to his fate. "I understand. It's just that I-"  
  
"Stop," Gokudera snarled, threatening Yamamoto with another paper-missile. "You mention baseball one more time and I swear I will stuff this down your throat."  
  
"But I-"  
  
The paper ball hit him right between the eyes. "Shut it already, you freak."  
  
Yamamoto's look of utter sorrow managed to persevere another three seconds altogether before being replaced by a huge, dorky grin. He picked up the makeshift cannon ball and tossed it in the air. "You've got pretty good aim, you know that? You would make a damned nice pitcher."  
  
Gokudera's expression darkened, his hands already reaching for another round of documents to use as weaponry. "I said enough with the baseball talk."  
  
"That wasn't baseball talk." Yamamoto shook his head.  
  
"I heard the word 'pitcher'. You telling me that's not baseball lingo?"  
  
"Nope." Somehow the sword idiot was suddenly a lot closer than Gokudera remembered, dropping the paper sphere in his lap. "That was a compliment."  
  
Gokudera looked up from the crinkled print-outs and into Yamamoto's big brown eyes, wondering why his mouth was not spitting out profanities at the moron. Instead he was sitting there like a dumb chicken while Yamamoto kept smiling at him from mere inches away.  
  
"I said no funny business." Gokudera wished his breath wasn't hitching. It would have made the statement so much more convincing. As a result Yamamoto firmly remained in place. Gokudera obviously needed to work on his authority.  
  
"I'm not doing anything." The swordsman smiled but it hardly concealed the fact that he knew damned well he was doing _something_.  
  
Gokudera scrambled up from the floor, pointing a warning finger at Yamamoto. "Yes, yes, you are. Now stop it!"  
  
The stubborn idiot stood up, following Gokudera's hasty and somewhat ungraceful retreat. He was still giving Gokudera this horribly tempting smile that was about ninety percent honest adoration and ten percent devious intent. Gokudera wasn't sure which part scared him more. It was probably the combination of the two.  
  
His backside connected with the dining table. "Back off, idiot!"  
  
"Can I kiss you?"  
  
"Can you  _what_?" Gokudera gaped at his designated partner in crime as if he'd just been asked to walk on the ceiling.  
  
Yamamoto continued to grin, apparently not in the least concerned by Gokudera's shocked expression. "I asked if I could kiss you. Last time I didn't ask which was pretty rude, so now I'm asking."  
  
Gokudera couldn't think of a single thing to respond. The answer 'No.' didn't even occur to him, which was the biggest problem of them all.  
  
He knew he shouldn't; for so many reason that he'd lost count. But it all felt awfully inconsequential in the face of the fact that Gokudera had stopped thinking with his head. Yamamoto was all warmth and openness, honesty and annoying, yet strangely pleasant closeness. He wore other people's personal space like a blanket. He seemed to ease his way past Gokudera's defences like raindrops falling through a cracked roof.  
  
And Gokudera was already knee-deep in water.  
  
In the end he owed Yamamoto a proper reply altogether. The swordsman simply took his lack of refusal as exactly the kind of invitation that it was. He brought their lips together, so gently that Gokudera wasn't even sure it was happening at first. It was almost as if he was afraid Gokudera would bolt if he made any fast movements - like some sort of frightened animal.  
  
He needn't have worried; when Yamamoto's touch finally registered the last thing Gokudera wanted to do was run. He made it known by bringing his hands up to grab two fistfuls of Yamamoto's shirt and dragging him closer.  
  
Yamamoto smiled against his lips, happy as a goddamned bunny in spring. It was like candy to a kid and Gokudera couldn't fool himself anymore. He was fast developing a sweet tooth.  
  
The swordsman's hands snaked around Gokudera's middle, steady and certain now like safety belts that kept Gokudera from spinning out of control. He was enveloped in a bubble of pleasant warmth as their kiss deepened, a hint of teeth here and there because Gokudera didn't trust kindness if it didn't have a catch.  
  
He caught himself moaning when he felt Yamamoto's fingers dance over the naked skin underneath his shirt. He cursed himself for being so fucking pathetic and obvious. Yamamoto didn't seem to mind though. And how could he? He  _was_ getting the better of Gokudera.  
  
The little voice in Gokudera's head that had always told him when to quit was throwing a tantrum in his mind. But Gokudera could barely hear it over the sound of Yamamoto's breath, the rustling of clothing and above all, his own heartbeat that could have outmatched an army of church bells. It was like speeding down a waterslide - it was fun until you noticed the swimming pool was empty.  
  
He was forgetting something, something important but it was so hard to think when Yamamoto's hands were busy undoing his belt. He tried to remember why all of this was a bad idea. It took him a long while but eventually he realised that the problem wasn't that he was kissing an FBI agent. It was rather the fact that this was the wrong one.  
  
The unmistakable twist of guilt was a telltale sign that Gokudera had come an incredibly long way from hating Hibari. He only regretted that it took this moment to realise it.  
  
The small voice inside his head was probably wearing a smug I-told-you-so expression, if it were capable of facial expressions. Gokudera wished it was because then he could have punched it in the face.  
  
He reached for Yamamoto's arm and held it tight by the wrist. "S-stop."  
  
He could almost hear Yamamoto's heart skip a beat, his breath catching in his throat. It was the most horrible thing Gokudera had ever done. He couldn't bring himself to look up.  
  
"Don't.  _Please._. Don't do this." Yamamoto's voice was just a whisper but he might as well have screamed because the words vibrated though Gokudera's every nerve. He'd been wrong -  _this_  was the most dreadful thing he'd ever experienced.  
  
"I...," Gokudera carefully disentangled Yamamoto's hand from his pants and brushed it aside, "I can't."  
  
His face was still buried in the crook of the agent's neck, where it was warm and cosy and where he could believe that everything was fine. But nothing was fine; nothing in the entire fucking world was fine at this point.  
  
Yamamoto stood stock-still for a few moments before his fingers started combing through Gokudera's hair; he could practically  _taste_  the desperation in the action.  
  
"It's okay," the swordsman suddenly said, low and as if he hoped nobody would hear it, "I understand."  
  
Gokudera laughed at that, a rough sound, full of frustration. "I doubt that you do."  
  
He slowly slid out of Yamamoto's embrace, the air seemingly freezing on his skin now that all the warmth was gone. "I don't even get it."  
  
Yamamoto offered him a smile that was so sad Gokudera wanted to scratch it off his face. "What's not to understand? You love him. Simple as that."  
  
"I don't fucking love-," he closed his mouth because everything from here on out would have been a lie. He was done lying.  
  
Yamamoto shrugged, crestfallen like an adventurer finding all the treasures stolen long before his time. "It's alright. I'm sure he knows."  
  
"This is not about him, you moron," Gokudera spat. He didn't need anyone telling him who he was in love with. And even more than that he couldn't stand Yamamoto being so freaking sympathetic. He wanted the swordsman to yell and fight - hell, Gokudera wouldn't even blame the idiot if he pulled his sword on him.  
  
"Sure it is." Yamamoto's smile faded, his voice low but steady. "Otherwise you'd be right here and not standing over there."  
  
He spread his arms ever so slightly, nothing but thin air between them. It was such a stranded gesture it almost brought Gokudera to his knees.  
  
"Fuck you. Just-," Gokudera resisted the urge to hit Yamamoto. He wished he was facing Hibari because he rarely failed to hit back - something Gokudera thought he rightfully deserved. He could have stopped this at any time but instead he chose to wait until it would hurt Yamamoto the most.  
  
He was worse than everyone else in this stupid, goddamned mess.  
  
"Fuck you," he repeated like it was some sort of trump card. It had little effect on Yamamoto. The swordsman continued to regard him as if he was something worthwhile locked up behind bullet-proof glass. Maybe he was - except for the worthwhile part perhaps.  
  
"I think that's out of the question." Yamamoto gave a short laugh that was so devoid of humour it was basically the black hole of fun.  
  
Gokudera couldn't take it anymore. He had no idea how to deal with a sad sword freak, much less when he was the cause of all the misery. The only thing he could think of that would restore Yamamoto's happiness level involved a bed and the shedding of clothes and that was definitely not happening. Gokudera might have been a lot of things but he had always stayed true to his word - sometimes a bit delayed but never not. He'd made a choice and he was going to stand by it. Even if it hurt like hell.  
  
"I should go," he announced, turning away to leave.  
  
Yamamoto wasn't surprised. "Yeah, maybe you should."  
  
He smiled weakly, stepping up to open the door.  
  
"Hey," he held Gokudera back with the fleeting touch of his hand, "I know you like me. Or... at least I think you don't hate me, which is something, I guess. You just like him more. That's all there is to it. I just... I thought I should at least give it a try. Because God knows I like you."  
  
Gokudera blinked dumbly in the stark neon lighting of the corridor. He hated confessions. They were like hot coals - the teller didn't want them and the listener only got burned. And there was absolutely nothing that could ease the pain.  
  
"Look, I'm s-," Gokudera began but Yamamoto stopped him.  
  
"Please, don't apologise." He grinned - a small glimpse of his usual self. "Makes me feel like a loser. But second place isn't so bad, is it?"  
  
Gokudera should have told him that they were more ex aequo in his book but that would only make this whole thing come full circle. So, he simply gave a wordless shrug.  
  
"I'll see you at the dress rehearsal then." Yamamoto presented him with a broad grin. It could have fooled anyone, except for Gokudera because he knew it didn't belong there.  
  
"You sure you don't want me to help clean up?" Gokudera grumbled, vaguely gesturing at the chaos they had left in Yamamoto's apartment. It looked like a physical representation of their mental state.  
  
"Don't worry. I'll be fine," Yamamoto said and Gokudera wasn't sure he was still talking about the disarray in his living room.  
  
Gokudera nodded quietly. He felt like he needed to say something but he thought better of it. He'd done enough damage for one day.  
  
He heard the door click shut when he'd reached the staircase. If forlorn made a sound it would have been this.  
  


\---

  
  
He walked aimlessly around the city for hours, smoking cigarettes like a factory outlet. His anklet didn't make a single beep, no matter where he went which meant that a) Yamamoto had informed his colleagues that Gokudera was with him or b) Hibari had simply assumed that Yamamoto would be there. Either way, the one mile rule was non-existent tonight.  
  
Gokudera couldn't have cared less.  
  
He thought about calling Shamal but then he realised he didn't know what to say. Besides, Shamal would probably suggest he bang both of them. He would phrase it differently but it usually boiled down to that.  
  
While the idea of this three-way was certainly tempting Gokudera highly doubted it would ever come to pass. Hibari didn't like to share and Yamamoto was probably too damned decent for anything like that. Plus, Gokudera wasn't sure he would survive it.  
  
He would have liked to talk to his sister but thanks to the FB-fucking-I that was impossible at the moment. Bianchi might have had overly romanticised views on the topic of love but she always had a couple of soothing words handy. Or a good slap on the back of his head if that was what he needed.  
  
He felt terribly alone. There was a reason why none of his previous relationships had lasted. When it got too complicated he ran. On the other hand, none of them had ever seemed worth staying for.  
  
His anklet was more or less dead weight right now, so he could have disappeared. He could have cleared out his hidden depots and left all of this behind.  
  
But he didn't. He was stupid and irrational and in over his head. That was why he ended up on Hibari's doorstep at four in the morning.


	9. Debug

Gokudera didn't have a key but there was a spare one attached to the underside of the birdcage on the porch. It was always there and free for him to take, which technically made it  _his key_  but he refused to carry it around like it belonged to him. Hibari had never commented on it. He had only indicated where it was located and then left it at that.  
  
He had given Gokudera a choice but it was more like a roundabout circling the same thing:  _take it or leave it - either way, it's yours._  
  
The door opened silently and Gokudera looked down at the key in his palm. He sighed and pocketed it.  
  
The house was dark, which was only natural. Even Hibari tended to sleep at this ungodly hour. Gokudera tiptoed into the living room, discarding his jacket. He briefly considered going upstairs to curl up in bed but decided against it.  
  
Hibari did not take kindly to being woken and Gokudera didn't particularly feel like fighting it out. Thus he sneaked to the only cupboard in the room and pulled a blanket from it. It was scratchy and a bit too short but it would do.  
  
He flopped down on the couch, wiggling around to find a comfortable position. He gave up after a while and simply lay there, staring up at the non-descript ceiling.  
  
"You came home."  
  
Hibari appeared out of nowhere, like a ghost. He stood on the last step leading into the living room, wearing his pyjamas and an unreadable expression. Gokudera wondered if he had used the term 'home' on purpose or if it was a slip-up caused by the early hour.  
  
"Yeah...," Gokudera said, uncertain, "sorry, didn't want to wake you."  
  
Hibari walked up to him, his bare feet not making a single sound on the wooden floor. It would forever be a mystery to Gokudera how he was doing that.  
  
"I wasn't sleeping." Hibari looked down at him, the light of the street lamps too weak to illuminate his face. But Gokudera could tell by the sound of his voice that he wasn't drowsy. It would have been rougher around the vowels if he'd just been roused.  
  
Gokudera sat up, not quite believing what this statement entailed. "Did you stay up all night?"  
  
"No," Hibari turned his head away, "I just couldn't sleep."  
  
Gokudera rolled his eyes, grumbling: "That's the same thing."  
  
The agent glared at him - the light was sufficient to see that just fine.  
  
But Gokudera lacked the energy to continue this argument. "Okay, okay. Whatever."  
  
"Anything else?" he asked with a tad of hesitation when Hibari made no move to go back to bed. Instead he seemed indecisive. That was a rare look on Hibari - like catching a meteor impact on camera, that kind of rare.  
  
He practically outdid himself in the rarity department when he suddenly sat down by Gokudera's side. He folded his hands in his lap and stared straight ahead at the opposite wall like a cinemagoer waiting for the movie to start. Gokudera could only gawk in awkward silence.  
  
The orange-tinged light from outside made Hibari look like a bronze statue - immovable, slightly unreal and impossibly tense. Gokudera recognised that posture. It usually preceded something serious, only he was missing a desk and an office this time.  
  
"My mother brought me here when I was five," Hibari suddenly spoke, hushed but firm as if he had to get it out now or not at all. "She wanted to protect me from my father so I wouldn't follow in his footsteps."  
  
Gokudera swallowed; he felt like he was about to witness the birth of a new galaxy. This was the first bit of truly personal information Hibari had ever freely given - and he wasn't even finished yet.  
  
"She was successful but she paid for it with her life," Hibari went on, still resolutely eyeing the wall. "I became an agent because of her. I figured it was the safest thing to do to ensure that I would never end up like my father. I haven't spoken to him since I was a child. However, I tried to keep a close eye on his movements. But I lost track of him a while ago. He's very-"  
  
"Good?" Gokudera provided.  
  
Hibari shot him an irritated glance. "Yes."  
  
"Must be in the family genes." He received another death glare for that.  
  
Hibari finally turned to look at him. "I didn't tell you about him because I thought it wouldn't be an issue. It never was until now. My connection to him is merely on paper. He had no right to drag you into this."  
  
Gokudera was pretty sure Hibari senior didn't give a damn about what rights he had or didn't have. "Guess what, that's occurred to me too. But that's how it is. And a lot of this shit could have been avoided if you'd told me."  
  
"I would have, if I had known that he was in town," Hibari replied, huffish.  
  
Gokudera groaned. "Not  _that_  again. Please. I thought we were over this. Your dad explicitly told me to keep you out of this. Which I fucked up splendidly, by the way. I had no choice."  
  
"You had a choice to tell me about your sister and didn't," Hibari admonished.  
  
"That's hardly comparable. My sister never kidnapped anyone and threatened to kill their siblings."  
  
"But she's your family."  
  
"So is your dad, fuckhead."  
  
They scowled at each other for a moment. The score was even but neither of them knew how to handle a draw.  
  
"You lied," Hibari hissed, his eyes narrowing noticeably.  
  
"You omitted," Gokudera snapped and for a second it looked like this was going to end in fisticuffs. But then Hibari sat back and stared at Gokudera like an archaeologist trying to translate an ancient inscription. Then he slowly nodded, as if judging the quality of his transcript.  
  
"It won't happen again," he said sternly. It was hard to tell if he was referring to Gokudera or to himself but it was the closest Hibari had ever gotten to admitting a mistake. The mere suggestion that this may or may not be taken as an apology sent Gokudera's mind reeling.  
  
If the Chinese Wall had suddenly gotten up and trotted away it couldn't have been more astonishing.  
  
Gokudera nodded cautiously. "O-kay...?"  
  
Hibari straightened up again, seemingly satisfied with the conclusion of their talk. Gokudera kept on gaping at his partner in sheer bewilderment. There was a small scratch on Hibari's cheek from their earlier, less fortunate exchange. It stood out starkly against his otherwise pale and, quite frankly, flawless skin; a glaring reminder that Gokudera wasn't the only one who had been wronged.  
  
"Erm...," he cleared his throat, nervously scratching his chin, "since we're on the topic... I think I need to tell you something."  
  
Hibari gave him an expectant look, waiting for him to go on.  
  
"I, uhm, I kissed him. Yamamoto, I mean." Gokudera ducked his head, just in case.  
  
"I know."  
  
Gokudera's eyes went wide, "You know? But how-"  
  
"You smell different."  
  
"I  _what_? Are you fucking kidding me? You can  _smell_  him?"  
  
Hibari grimaced. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm not a dog. You have a hickey on your throat."  
  
Gokudera clutched at his neck in a momentary bout of panic. Damn it, he hadn't even noticed anything of the sort. Yamamoto, that sneaky bastard.  
  
"So... you're not going to tonfa my brains out or anything?" He asked tentatively, ready to retaliate at the first flash of silvery steel.  
  
But Hibari only shrugged, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You came home."  
  
Gokudera was officially out of things to say. Hibari was either the most confident fucker in the world or the most accommodating lover imaginable. But if he had ever needed a confirmation as to why he'd come back here there it was. Hibari was like Schrödinger's cat - you never knew until you looked inside the box. Sometimes you even ended up with a bird instead of a cat. And you would never find out how that happened.  
  
He couldn't help but smile; he hadn't felt this relieved in a long time.  
  
"What's so amusing?" Hibari inquired, his brow furrowed.  
  
Gokudera shook his head, laughing quietly to himself. "And I thought I had issues. Seems like we have more in common than we thought."  
  
Hibari arched an eyebrow. "Don't compare me to y-"  
  
Gokudera stopped the oncoming quarrel with a kiss, his fingers tracing apologetically over the mark his rings had left on Hibari's cheek. "Shut up, you stubborn bastard."  
  
And Hibari actually did.  
  


\---

  
  
They had two days to train and test out their plan. Yamamoto had miraculously procured an empty warehouse where they could set up their gear. It was either sponsored by Papa 'Scare the crap out of you' Hibari or the FBI, Yamamoto wouldn't say. Gokudera didn't like it either way.  
  
At least they seemed to be somewhat okay - which meant that Gokudera was ignoring the incident at Yamamoto's apartment while Yamamoto himself tried to appear like he was ignoring the fact that Gokudera was ignoring it.  
  
They were both only semi-successful.  
  
In the meantime, Dino and the rest of his squad were busy keeping the press out of it so none of the affected companies would go change their alarm systems too soon. And Hibari... well, Hibari did what he was best at: being a jerk.  
  
He was slightly less of a prick once Gokudera returned to his bed late at night after having spent the day suspended from a ceiling while attempting to avoid the full range of commercially available sensors. Gokudera was still trying to figure out if Yamamoto zapped him every time he failed to help him improve or just to torment him.  
  
He leaned towards the latter - judging by the pathetic, longing looks Yamamoto was giving him whenever he thought Gokudera wasn't paying attention. But Gokudera  _always_  paid attention. Sadly, he did so the most whenever Yamamoto had his back turned, providing Gokudera with a picture-perfect view of his ass.  
  
Telling yourself that you were not in any way interested in a person was easy enough but  _believing_  it was the actual challenge. And Gokudera's body was pretty much giving him the metaphorical finger in this regard.  
  
He just wished the entirety of his being would finally make up its goddamned mind. He couldn't have Hibari fuck him into the mattress at night and spend the day gazing at Yamamoto's - admittedly, impressive - body like a hungry, slightly deranged wolf.  
  
The goal of this whole ordeal was not to get laid as much as possible, after all. Besides, Gokudera might have been a thieving mastermind but he was  _not_  a cheating bastard.  
  
And apart from that there was still something that bugged him even more than the feeling of being benchpressed between two planets.  
  


\---

  
  
Hibari was locking the drawers of his desk for the night when Gokudera came to find him.  
  
"You're going home?" Gokudera inquired, the only conversation starter he could think of at such short notice.  
  
"Where else would I be going?" Hibari appeared to be completely oblivious of tonight's endeavours. But appearances were not everything, not even and perhaps  _especially_  where Hibari was concerned.  
  
Gokudera shrugged and found his hand going for the back of his neck. He stopped himself, cramming his hands deep into his pockets. The fucking idiot was rubbing off on him - and within barely a week no less. This was getting ridiculous.  
  
"Tonight's the big night, remember?" Gokudera leaned against the doorframe, watching Hibari shuffle about his office. "I thought you were going with Dino to keep an eye on things."  
  
 _To keep an eye on **me**_ , he added in his head. The possibility that he was going to do something stupid was ever present.  
  
"Cavallone can handle it," Hibari said without turning around. That was odd, seeing as how Hibari was a control freak par excellence. But Gokudera had a suspicion as to why the agent was reluctant to tag along.  
  
"Do you really want to go through with this?" Gokudera blurted out before he could change his mind. The effect was unusual. Hibari ceased tidying up his file cabinet and simply stood with his back towards Gokudera, one file still in his hand and hovering inches above the shelf.  
  
"Why would I not?" Hibari asked but it sounded like he was talking through his teeth. Apparently, Gokudera was dead-on - 'dead' being the keyword if he wasn't careful.  
  
He took a tentative step forward. "Come on, Kyouya. We're talking about your freaking  _dad_  here. You really hate him this much?"  
  
Hibari's hand fell to his side, his fingers curling around the paper and crumpling it. He was still facing the other way. "He's a criminal. He needs to be brought to justice."  
  
"That's not an answer to my question," Gokudera admonished, gathering his courage and placing a hand on Hibari's shoulder to make him turn around. "He's your  _father_ , for fuck's sake."  
  
Hibari whirled around, shoving his arm away and glaring daggers at him while his voice remained stone-cold. "What's it to you? It's not your problem."  
  
Gokudera scowled back with all the force of someone who was on the right track and knew it was leading straight towards certain doom. "Oh hell yes, it is. And  _you're_  obviously having a problem with it."  
  
"I told you, he's just another case." Hibari was hissing like an enraged snake. Even the most courageous animal tamer would have backed out by now but Gokudera's vocabulary didn't include the word 'retreat'.  
  
"Yeah," he snorted, crossing his arms in front of his chest, "and you're being a real fucking professional asshat about it."  
  
"Don't insult me," Hibari growled and Gokudera clearly saw him shift his right foot back into the first makings of a fighting stance. He gave it another two minutes before the tonfa would come out. Less if he kept the insults coming.  
  
"Look," Gokudera tried the sympathetic approach, "if anybody knows what it feels like to hate their father it's me. You know that. But hating him and throwing him into jail are two completely different things."  
  
Hibari perked up a bit, frowning. "Are you saying that you would not help apprehend your father if you knew that he has violated the law?"  
  
"I goddamned know for a freaking fact that he's done something wrong, you blockhead," Gokudera snapped, "and I still wouldn't help anyone arrest him."  
  
Hibari's shoulders relaxed for a moment, as if all his energy went into figuring out Gokudera's sentiments.  _Well, good luck with that_ , Gokudera thought gloomily.  
  
"There's no other way," the agent concluded after a while. He didn't sound convinced but rather like someone who had seen the end of the road and was wondering how much it would take to build a bridge.  
  
"We can still call this whole thing off," Gokudera mused but it was more like throwing Hibari a lifeboat with a hole in it.  
  
Naturally, Hibari shook his head no. "Too many questions if we did."  
  
Of course he was right. They had no valid arguments to stop this - none that would allow any of them to keep their current jobs.  
  
"I'll think of something," Gokudera said with determination. There were not too many chances to help Hibari on a personal level; except with a whole lot of physical stress relief, perhaps. And deep down, in the calculating parts of his mind he figured that it couldn't hurt if the agent owed him one. He just had no idea how to accomplish that yet.  
  
As if on cue, Hibari's expression turned a bit darker still. "I doubt that you are in a position to do anything."  
  
Gokudera poked a finger at Hibari's chest. "Then you don't know me very well, do you,  _agent Hibari_?"  
  
" _Special agent_ ," Hibari corrected automatically, "and I know you better than you know yourself."  
  
"Well," Gokudera said defiantly, turning on his heel, "I guess then it's time to find out something new about myself."


	10. Timeout

It was easier said than done. By the time he and Yamamoto crept up to the building of Neuberg BioChem, he still hadn't figured out how to make this go away while keeping all parties involved happy.  
  
The only way they would be safe was if Hibari's dad backed off of his own accord and the FBI never got wind of his blood relation to one of their own. No matter what scenario Gokudera played out in his mind, he always found a catch.  
  
"Ready?" Yamamoto whispered, effectively dragging Gokudera out of his contemplations.  
  
"Yeah, sure," Gokudera huffed. "You're the one asking stupid questions."  
  
Yamamoto smiled but it was full of genuine concern. "You just seem a bit... off, that's all."  
  
"If by 'off' you mean that I'm this close to kicking your ass, then yes."  
  
The swordsman blinked a few times and then chuckled as if Gokudera had told him a dirty joke. "Okay. Just checking."  
  
"Go check on those damned security guards, idiot." But Gokudera was already talking to thin air. He had to hand it to Yamamoto - the guy was deft. He ducked between the bushes and was gone from sight in an instant. It probably had something to do with this whole ninja crap he had going on but Gokudera couldn't deny that he was a little bit impressed. He would have hacked his right arm off before telling Yamamoto as much but in his head he was humming approvingly.  
  
Gokudera stayed hidden in the shadows, waiting for Yamamoto's confirmation that the guards were busy watching the game on their little handhelds. When the signal came he headed for the entrance to the generator room.  
  


\---

  
  
Gokudera carefully slid the laptop beneath the generator cabinet to keep it out of view. It was plugged into the camera feeds and recorded roughly two minutes of nothing but empty corridors. The infinite playback loop would make sure that it would stay that way as far as the guards were concerned. If they were even half as antsy about tonight's game as Yamamoto was then they weren't going to waste much time watching their monitors anyway.  
  
The pressure sensors in the labs were a bit trickier because they couldn't be turned off entirely. That would have raised an alarm. But what Gokudera could do was up their maximum capacity until they couldn't tell man from air anymore.  
  
As soon as that was taken care of Gokudera shook the full-body suit out of his backpack. It absorbed a good portion of body heat and would hopefully fool the heat detectors. It was not the most comfortable piece of clothing but if everything went well he would only have to wear it for so long.  
  
"Two guards making their round."  
  
Gokudera bit his tongue out of sheer surprise. He almost toppled over at the sudden whiff of air tickling his neck. He struggled to keep his balance, slapping Yamamoto's helping hand away. "Fucking ninja freak! Don't do that!"  
  
He glowered at the idiot and zipped up his outfit with a vengeance.  
  
"Sorry." Yamamoto shrugged, "I thought you'd heard me."  
  
"See?" Gokudera shoved a warning finger under the moron's nose. "That's exactly why I work alone."  
  
"Hey, I said I'm sorry." Yamamoto's gaze dropped but his apologetic attitude didn't even outlast the blink of an eye. When he looked up he grinned. "You look like Catwoman."  
  
Gokudera stopped stuffing his backpack in favour of narrowing his eyes on the swordsman. "What did you just call me?"  
  
Yamamoto was wise enough to take a step back. "Uh... I meant it as a compliment. Really! I mean... she  _is_  sexy, you know?"  
  
It got him a kick to the shin.  
  
"If anything I'm Batman, clear?" Gokudera spat, shouldering the backpack and simultaneously hitting Yamamoto in the head with it. "Not a goddamned chick in a leather costume."  
  
"Okay." Yamamoto winced and hobbled after him. "Got it."  
  


\---

  
  
_"So, if you're Batman then who am I?"_  Yamamoto was lucky he wasn't there in person because his constant babbling over their intercom would have earned him another hearty kick to the knee by now.  
  
Gokudera rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the talkative moron and slowly edged towards the ventilator outlet. He had honestly hoped that he was done with crawling through ventilator shafts but apparently life had different plans. He was currently making his way through the air ducts above the laboratories. According to Yamamoto's blueprints the second outlet landed him squat in the middle of the lab area and directly above the cleanroom.  
  
"You're fucking annoying, that's what you are," Gokudera grumbled while fumbling with the screws holding the ventilation grille in place.  
  
 _"You know that I can hear you, right?"_  
  
"You're still talking," Gokudera said through gritted teeth and slid the grille aside. He peered through the opening and indeed, he was right where he wanted to be. A little over six feet below him was the glass cube of the cleanroom, sitting there amidst the lab tables like an architectural Babushka doll in all its well-secured glory.  
  
 _"Sorry,"_  Yamamoto was saying on the intercom,  _"I thought it would ease the tension."_  
  
"Fuck tension," Gokudera panted as he pulled the impromptu mini air lock from its container, "just keep an eye on those controls."  
  
 _"Will do."_  
  
Gokudera shook his head in silent exasperation and continued to unfold the small plastic tunnel. Shamal had provided him with this little gimmick which had solved a rather persistent problem in Gokudera's plan. They were trying to break into a room that was kept under constant positive pressure which meant that if Gokudera started making holes in its walls half a dozen alarms would go off; the air would be leaving the room faster than the stabilizer units could pump it in there.  
  
He'd considered going in through the main air lock but the entire cleanroom was surrounded by pressure sensors and a grid of laser beams. Besides, activating the air lock after hours and without permission called more guards into action than Gokudera was willing to handle. Which was  _zero_.  
  
But Shamal was not only an able fence and an arguably gifted doctor, but also a somewhat capable procurer of rare items. Gokudera had no idea how Shamal had gotten his hands on a goddamned miniature version of a full-blown air lock and he didn't intend to ask. He feared it had something to do with eBay. The beauty and the curse of the internet: somewhere there was always a geek who had what you needed.  
  
Regardless of Gokudera's opinion on Shamal's shopping habits it allowed him to climb into the room without the air pressure plummeting. Sure, his gadget was nowhere near as effective as the real thing but it would give Gokudera enough time to work on the refrigerators.  
  
Sadly, this tied directly into the reason why this was a two-man job. The stabilizer units were located outside the lab area and somebody had to take care that the air pressure didn't fall below 14 Pa. If it did - guards, alarms, the whole shebang.  
  
People went to great lengths to protect their property but they tended to be extra careful when their most prized possessions sported a 'Biohazard' label.  
  
 _"I'm sorta like Robin, aren't I?"_  
  
Gokudera flinched and almost dropped the tape. "What the hell? Shut up!"  
  
 _"I was just wondering."_  
  
"Wonder quieter, dipshit."  
  
 _"Hey, hey, no need to get offensive."_  
  
Gokudera clenched his teeth before he could prove to Yamamoto that this was only stage one of offensiveness. But he couldn't afford to get into an argument right now. So instead he concentrated on sealing off the small portion of the ventilation duct he was occupying. He made sure that the rig was securely attached to the rims of the outlet and wriggled around until he could lower the other end of the tunnel onto the glass ceiling of the cleanroom.  
  
He took a deep breath and began his descent, head-first, until he was a few inches above the glass. There was not much room to manoeuvre inside the narrow tunnel but he managed to pull the small vial of acid from his belt.  
  
"I'm starting to cut now," he informed Yamamoto. "Remember, if the air pressure drops too fast push the 'plus' button until it's somewhere around 15 Pascal again. Understood?"  
  
 _"I got it, don't worry."_  
  
"Don't worry, my ass."  
  
 _"Hey!"_  Yamamoto sounded hurt.  _"I might not be a criminal mastermind but I can damned well read a screen and push some buttons."_  
  
"Okay, okay," Gokudera amended. Dangling upside-down from the ceiling was not his favourite time to discuss Yamamoto's abilities. "Just... don't leave me hanging, alright?"  
  
Judging by the tone of his voice Yamamoto was smiling.  _"Wouldn't dream of it."_  
  
For a moment Gokudera wondered if he wasn't the one intending to let Yamamoto down. After all, he was desperately searching for an alternate way out of this mess. The fact that he hadn't been successful until now didn't mean he was done searching.  
  
He shook his head to get rid of these thoughts; at least for the time being. He couldn't etch his way through several inches of special-purpose glass and worry about their collective wellbeing all at once.  
  
If this had been a normal safe Gokudera would have simply drilled through the wall, but the thing about a room full of potentially hazardous materials was that people were dead set on keeping them from getting out. Hence the outside of the glass cube was lined with dozens of sensors picking up on the slightest of vibrations. It was less designed to be an obstacle for thieves than a means to check on the structural integrity of the cleanroom.  
  
Unfortunately, this left them with limited options on how to get inside. Drilling was out of the question and fiddling with the steel bars holding the glass panels together was also less than favourable. But Gokudera had dealt with a similar problem before and had therefore been able to proudly present Yamamoto with a third option: a special acid.  
  
It was quiet and effective but also dangerous. This wasn’t exactly baking soda so a good amount of caution was advisable.  
  
It did work like a charm though. Gokudera secured the suction cups of the handle that would later allow him to hold on to the clipped part of the panel. Within a few minutes the acid had eaten through the entire panel, leaving Gokudera with a vaguely round piece of glass.  
  
He removed it and held his breath. This was the moment his nifty little gadget had to prove that it was worth whatever money Shamal had paid for it.  
  
"And?" He whispered when Yamamoto didn't say anything.  
  
 _"It dropped a little but you're still good."_  
  
Gokudera slowly exhaled. One thing less to worry about.  
  
He couldn't simply shove the piece of glass aside so he fastened it to an extra rope dangling from the air duct beside him.  
  
"Okay," Gokudera announced, "going in now."  
  
Yamamoto stayed quiet, which surprised Gokudera a bit but apparently even the sword idiot had gotten the memo that this was a critical moment.  
  
He lowered himself into the room, mere inches at a time. He couldn't be sure how well the suit would hide his body heat - admittedly, he was sweating a lot more than during their training. When he was suspended halfway between ceiling and floor he swung around to land feet first on the small patch of tiles that had been left devoid of sensors.  
  
It was a tiny area around the refrigerators. The vibrations of the cooling units would have thrown off any sensors. It allowed for one person to snugly fit against the refrigerator doors without tripping the alarm.  
  
 _"How's it going?"_  Yamamoto's voice was hushed.  
  
"At the fridge." Gokudera whispered while pulling the remodelled PSP from its sheath at his side.  
  
Upon seeing it Yamamoto had asked if he was planning on beating the high score to get into the refrigerators. He had laughed his usual stupid laugh but Gokudera had simply slapped him on the back of his head and explained to him that if this thing could render highly elaborate game graphics it would be able run this damned algorithm.  
  
By the time Gokudera had been done with the small gaming device it was fit to break into fucking NORAD if necessary.  
  
He took great care in removing the cover from the keypad on the door, revealing the electronic equivalent of intestines - an ordered chaos of cables and circuit boards. With tiny clamps he attached the PSP to a selected pair of cables and launched their illegally obtained algorithm.  
  
Unfortunately, it also gave Gokudera a few moments to think. He knew this was going to work. His biggest worry had been the air lock and it seemed to hold, so if nothing unforeseen happened he was going to be out of there in a matter of roughly five minutes.  
  
It just didn't feel right. Which was odd since breaking in and taking other people's possessions had obviously never bothered him before. But he was about to steal a highly unstable chemical compound, hand it to a wanted criminal and then... what? Depend on the FBI to catch him? Hibari senior? The one who had been able to mislead even his own son?  
  
What if he got away?  
  
Yes, what if he disappeared again... Gokudera stared at the numbers running across the screen and suddenly it hit him. If Hibari's father was somehow forced to go into hiding the FBI would be too busy going after him than to investigate among their own ranks. It would have to be something urgent, something life-threatening though. Otherwise Hibari the elder would continue to haunt their collective asses like a biblical plague.  
  
But if he never got his hands on this substance he wouldn't have a drug to offer and Gokudera imagined that would make the Columbians mighty unhappy.  
  
The door clicked while Gokudera was still busy probing this newly found scenario from all angles like a shiny diamond amongst a shitload of glass copies. There were still a few impurities, like his sister's safety for example. If Dino failed to get her out of custody she might end up imprisoned for life for something she didn't do. But Gokudera feared that he would just have to rely on somebody else's help this time.  
  
All in all, it was a better idea than any he had previously had. It covered all bases, thinly in some places but at least it didn't have giant holes in it.  
  
He eyed the dimly illuminated stacks inside the fridge, scanning the labels for the one he wanted. He would only have about four seconds to reach inside and grab the container before the heat sensors would pick up on the sudden emission of cold air.  
  
Gokudera stood there, biting his lip. He could end this right here. If he got caught the company would probably either relocate or stop their research altogether for at least a couple of weeks. That would certainly be too long for the Columbians. Gokudera doubted they were known for their patience.  
  
If they made Hibari's father run they would have him off their backs.  
  
It seemed like the perfect solution - if there wasn't the teeny-tiny drawback of him having to fucking  _fail_. Gokudera hated failing. It didn't matter that he was doing it for a good cause - it still tasted like mouldy old failure.  
  
Gokudera closed his eyes and sighed. He couldn't believe he was about to do this.  
  
"Hey, Yamamoto?"  
  
 _"What's up? Problems?"_  
  
Gokudera wasn't sure how to break the news to his partner in crime. It would certainly cause a lot of trouble for Yamamoto, not to mention the loss of a case he'd helped establish over the course of two years. Gokudera could only hope that he wasn't ruining one career in order to save another.  
  
"Would you do me a favour?" Gokudera asked quietly, his hand already settling on the handle of the door.  
  
 _"Favour? What are you talking about? Hurry up."_  
  
"Listen to me, idiot," Gokudera laid as much urgency into his voice as possible to make Yamamoto see that this was no joke, "will you do me a favour, or not?"  
  
 _"I... what are you up to, Gokudera?"_  Yamamoto sounded alert. He was probably aware that things were quickly deviating from the original plan.  
  
Gokudera heaved another sigh. "I'm sorry, Takeshi."  
  
 _"Sorry? For what? What are you-... Wait. Are you-"_  
  
"Yes. And I want you to pass on a message, okay?"  
  
 _"Gokudera, please, don't do this,"_  Yamamoto pleaded. It was fortunate that they were not face-to-face. Gokudera wasn't sure he would have been able to withstand the force of the puppy-dog eyes.  
  
"There's no other way," Gokudera said and he couldn't help but smile weakly at the fact that he was using Hibari's own words to explain himself.  
  
 _"Gokudera..."_  
  
"Look, are you going to help me out here or not, stupid?" Gokudera was getting impatient.  
  
For a long while there was no answer but when Yamamoto finally responded he sounded like someone who had read the end of the book and knew that there was no hope for a happy ending.  _"Yeah. Sure."_  
  
It hurt Gokudera; it hurt him more than he was willing to admit but he had no choice. He had no real explanation as to why the prospect of losing Hibari was so horrible and it scared him shitless that it coaxed him into doing something like this. But maybe Yamamoto was right. Maybe Bianchi was right too and maybe, just  _maybe_  it was time to face certain truths.  
  
Gokudera leaned his head against the cool front of the refrigerator. "Tell him... tell him I trust him."  
  
That was all. That was everything.  
  
And Yamamoto seemed to know too. Gokudera pictured him smiling, sad but irritatingly understanding like always.  _"I'll tell him."_  
  
"Good." He nodded and straightened up. "Now get the hell out of here."  
  
 _"Gokudera, you know you don't have to-"_  
  
"I said  _get out_ , idiot." Gokudera yanked the refrigerator door wide open. There was no reply from Yamamoto.  
  


\---

  
  
The guards' response time was much better than Gokudera had estimated. Not even two minutes after the alarms had gone off he was facing the business end of several guns. He placed the container on one of the tables and held up his hands. One would have thought that his immediate cooperation counted for something but he was roughly thrown to the ground and yelled at like a bad dog.  
  
He was handcuffed and dragged out of the labs to the sound of police sirens ringing through the air.

 

\---

Pa = [Pascal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_%28unit%29), unit of (internal) pressure and/or stress


	11. Save

Gokudera sat in his cell and stared at the opposite wall. There was a writing, a little to the left of the empty bunk:  _If only I knew what I was doing._  
  
He'd read it countless times over the course of the last few hours and to this very moment he hadn't come up with an answer.  
  
How this person had managed to smuggle in a sharpie was a mystery all by itself. But on second thought Gokudera really didn't want to know. From personal experience he could tell that the police were very thorough. They had stripped him of his entire gear, including his suit. Fortunately, not even the police were heartless enough to let him sit around naked. Or they didn't enjoy his bare butt as much as Hibari did. However their opinion on his physique, they had handed him a standard prisoners uniform in glaring yellow. It was the complete opposite of comfortable but still better than freezing his ass off.  
  
He was considering leaving his own musings for future occupants of this cell when the door gave an automated click and rattled open. It revealed a police officer and a familiar dark-haired figure.  
  
Gokudera smiled, a little relieved but not yet reassured. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't come."  
  
Upon a nod from Hibari the policeman bustled off. The agent turned to eye Gokudera with a look that could mean anything from 'You are screwed' to 'I am your knight in a black suit. All hail me.'.  
  
"I got your message," he said eventually, his tone as level as if he was reciting yesterday's news.  
  
Gokudera nodded, cautious, "I was hoping you would."  
  
Hibari tossed him a small key and pointed at the handcuffs still binding Gokudera's wrists. He didn't take his eyes off Gokudera.  
  
"You fucked up," he stated after a while.  
  
Gokudera stood up, holding out the handcuffs for Hibari to take. He offered a small, vaguely guilty smile along with them. "Yes. Yes, I did."  
  
He hadn't really thought about what to expect. Gratitude? A punch in the face? With Hibari everything was possible.  
  
The agent stood in the door, blocking Gokudera's way. He didn't look up but when he took the handcuffs he pulled Gokudera flush against him. Hibari's breath tickled his ear and before any of this could make sense there was the suggestion of lips against his skin.  
  
Hibari didn't say thank you. But Gokudera knew the agent well enough to read not only between the lines but also from essentially blank pages. And his kisses were like ink blotches - up for interpretation.  
  
He grinned. "So, does that mean we're good?"  
  
Hibari silently held him close for another second or two which was an answer all by itself. Then he stepped back, assuming his official persona again. "The case is ruined. The main suspect has fled the country and important military research was set back months, if not years."  
  
"Yeah, I figured as much." Gokudera snorted and hurried after Hibari as the agent determinedly stalked down the hall towards the exit.  
  
"You will have to tell me exactly how you failed."  
  
Gokudera stopped for a moment and blinked. "What for?"  
  
Hibari threw him a glance over his shoulder. "I will have to put it in my report. I assume you tripped?"  
  
When Gokudera didn't reply he nodded, a thin little smile on his face. "Yes. I think you tripped."  
  
They hurried out of the police station, past rather intimidated officers and Gokudera couldn't hide his grin anymore. "Yeah, that was it. Tripped. Shame, really. Seems like I'm out of practice, after all."  
  
Gokudera didn't miss the beginnings of a grin on Hibari's lips but they were quickly replaced by his usual business expression. Hibari led the way to his car, gesturing at Gokudera to get in.  
  
He slid into the passenger seat and gave Hibari just enough time to get adjusted before blurting out: "What about my sister?"  
  
Hibari seemingly ignored him and started the car.  
  
"Hey," Gokudera grabbed the gear shifter and forced Hibari to pay him some goddamned attention, "I asked you a question, jerk."  
  
Hibari's eyes narrowed as if he was weighing the benefits of a fight against the damage it would do to his car. Obviously, the car won. "She was released an hour ago. Turns out there was a terrible misunderstanding."  
  
Gokudera kept his hand where it was. "Misunderstanding, huh?"  
  
Hibari nodded. "It happens."  
  
The agent would have been an awe-inspiring poker player - if he indulged in such things. But Gokudera was pretty sure he thought gambling to be below him. He never did anything he wasn't sure of. It made Gokudera grin because he knew everything was on its way back to normal.  
  
Besides, now that Bianchi was not facing murder charges or imminent death anymore smiling came a lot easier to him. He leaned back in his seat, satisfied that this part of his plan had actually panned out well.  
  
His smile did falter when he remembered that even the most magnificent plan had its flaws. He also didn't know how willing Hibari was to talk about it but he had to ask.  
  
"And... Yamamoto?" He tried to sound casual but he could barely cover up the worry in his voice. Hibari only shot him a sideways glance. "He's fine."  
  
Gokudera squirmed like a kid at the dentist's. He knew Yamamoto was not physically hurt but when it came to the rest of him Gokudera wasn't quite so sure. "That's not what I meant."  
  
"I know." Hibari's eyes were trained on the road but his body language was that of a block of concrete. He might not have minded if Gokudera spent half the days with Yamamoto on a case but it still wasn’t Hibari’s favourite topic.  
  
"So...," Gokudera cleared his throat, fiddling with the zipper on his uniform, "is the stupid oaf going to be in trouble for this?"  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
Gokudera sank lower in his seat and failed to say anything. You couldn't do right by everyone, that much he had learned the hard way. But he had hoped that just this once it wouldn't hit the nice ones.  
  
"He gave me this." Hibari suddenly reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a small piece of paper. He handed it to Gokudera who took it with a questioning frown. It was a page from an official FBI notepad and had obviously been ripped out in a hurry. There was a phone number scribbled on it, along with a note:  
  


_If you ever need a Robin again, call me._

  
  
Underneath it was a drawing of something that looked remotely like a bat if you turned it upside-down and squinted at it while holding it out of the window.  
  
Gokudera stared at the message in disbelief, at first. And then a subtle smile crept onto his face.  
  
"Idiot." he pocketed the paper, "Robin's sign is a bird."  
  


\---

  
  
All in all, the hearing before the internal FBI commission went better than expected. Although Gokudera was glad he didn't have to testify. He was pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face.  
  
In the end, Yamamoto got off with a slightly tarnished record but Gokudera figured it was nothing he couldn't fix with a bright smile and a few lucky arrests. The commission didn't even touch Hibari. It was amusing to see Hibari's magic work on the very people who were supposed to keep him in line. It was a very wilful, subliminally violent kind of magic but it did have a miraculous effect on the committee.  
  
Gokudera stood in front of the FBI building and snapped his cell phone shut like a mouse trap. He'd just suffered through a lengthy conversation with his sister. It had ranged from not-quite-yelling-but-you-know-that-I-could to gleefully reiterated nonsense about love and happiness. He should have just shut up about Hibari, really. But knowing Bianchi she would have probably gone and threatened it out of Shamal anyway. She was more like him than Gokudera wanted to admit.  
  
He took a drag from his cigarette that he'd lit halfway through the phone call just to keep himself from punching a wall or doubling over due to heavy corniness overload. She even wanted to visit, God help him. Gokudera's imagination was vast when it came to horror scenarios but he couldn't for the life of him picture Hibari meeting his sister. On the other hand, it could hardly be worse than his encounter with Hibari senior. Payback was a bitch, after all.  
  
Behind him, the big glass doors opened with the telltale sound of metal hinges that were too high up for maintenance to bother.  
  
"So?" Gokudera asked when Hibari stepped up next to him. "What now?"  
  
Hibari shrugged. "Nothing. Case closed."  
  
Gokudera glanced at his partner and smiled around his half-smoked cigarette. "I doubt that."  
  
"My father is gone." Hibari gave him a vaguely confused look. "There is nothing left to do."  
  
Gokudera flicked the stub to the ground and squashed the smouldering remains with his heel. He squinted into the fading sunlight and grinned. "You'll keep an eye on him."  
  
He could positively  _sense_  Hibari's raised eyebrow. "What makes you so sure of that?"  
  
It gave Gokudera considerable pleasure to throw these words back into Hibari's face: "I know you."  
  
He didn't wait for the agent's reply. Instead he strolled towards the car and impatiently tapped the roof. "You coming or what? I hear our coffee machine calling my name."  
  
"It's  _my_  coffee machine," Hibari snarled but unlocked the doors anyway.  
  
"And you're letting me use it," Gokudera said matter-of-factly. "That makes it  _our_  coffee machine."  
  
Hibari looked at him over the roof of his car and for a moment it seemed like he was about to jump over it and strangle Gokudera. But then the tension gave way to something else and it was as close to a mischievous smirk as it ever got. "I'm only allowing you to use it because you compensate me well for it."  
  
"You're a cruel bastard, you know that?" Gokudera scowled as he flopped down in the passenger seat.  
  
Hibari let the engine roar up and smiled like a triumphant king returning home. "You like it."  
  
Gokudera was fully prepared to deny this preposterous accusation when he realised that, as a matter of fact, he did. He had a house key, a night in prison and a horde of stampeding rhinos in his heart to prove it. Not to mention the fucking coffee machine.  
  
"Maybe. A little," he mumbled, his eyes kept firmly on the scenery outside. The car made a strangely ungraceful halt at a red light and he suddenly felt Hibari's gaze on him.  
  
"I was talking about the coffee, you arrogant prick," Gokudera snapped, despite the obvious discrepancy in conversational linearity.  
  
Hibari eyed him like an interesting new theory and then presented him with this irritatingly knowing smirk. "Sure."  
  
Gokudera crossed his arms and slumped back in his seat. He had never been one to admit defeat. "Fuck you."  
  
The light turned green and the wheels of the Mercedes left black rubber marks on the concrete as Hibari put the pedal to the metal. "Give me ten minutes and I'll see to that."  
  
To his shame Gokudera noticed for the first time that a ten minute drive home could be entirely too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Coming up next on *Heroes not Included :**
> 
>  
> 
> If you want something done right do it yourself.
> 
> 69 problems but a mint ain't one.
> 
> Not Dying for Dummies - A beginner's guide.
> 
> Gokudera and the green-eyed monster.
> 
> Hibari revolutionises anger management.


End file.
